Now dial. Forms: 5 suante, suaunt, 6–9 sewant, 8 souant, 9 suent, 8– suant. [a. AF. sua(u)nt, OF. suiant, sivant, pr. pple. of sivre (mod.F. suivre) to follow:—L. *sequere for sequī.]
† 1. Following, ensuing. Obs. (Cf. SUING.)
1422. Yonge, trans. Secreta Secret., xxxvii. 195. Now will I retourn to that place … in this sam maner suante.
† 2. ? Agreeing, suitable. Obs.
1418–20. J. Page, Siege of Rouen, in Hist. Coll. Cit. Lond. (Camden), 34. Kyngys, herrowdys, and pursefauntys, In cotys of armys suauntys [v.rr. amyauntis, arryauntis].
3. Working or proceeding regularly, evenly, smoothly or easily; even, smooth, regular. Also advb. = SUANTLY.
For other dial. meanings (‘placid, equable,’ ‘pleasing, agreeable,’ ‘demure, grave’) see Eng. Dial. Dict.
1547, etc. [implied in SUANTLY].
1605. R. Carew, in Lett. Lit. Men (Camden), 100. By observing our wittie and sewant [printed servant) manner of deducing [words from Latin and French].
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb. (1757), 149. The middle-ripe barley … ripened altogether, and looked white and very suant [marg. kindly, flourishing].
1787. Grose, Prov. Gloss., Zuant, regularly sowed. The wheat must be zown zuant.
1796. W. H. Marshall, Rur. Econ. W. Eng., I. 330. Souant: fair, even, regular (a hackneyed word).
1854. N. & Q., Ser. I. X. 420. A fisherman’s line is said to run through his hand suant [printed suart] when he feels no inequality or roughness, but it is equally soft and flexible throughout.
1854. Thoreau, Walden (1908), 28. Yet the Middlesex Cattle Show goes off here with éclat annually, as if all the joints of the agricultural machine were suent.
1899. Baring-Gould, Bk. West, II. xvi. 252. Peter and his wife did not get on very ‘suant’ together.
