a. (adv.) [f. SWAN sb. + -LIKE.] Like a swan, or like that of a swan.

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1591.  Sylvester, Du Bartas, I. v. 727. White (Swan-like) wings.

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1607.  Barley-Breake (1877), 12. Her Swan-like brest, her Alabaster hands.

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1697.  Dryden, Virg. Past., IX. 48. I … gabble like a Goose, amidst the Swan-like Quire.

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1726.  Pope, Odyss., XIX. 649. Fast by the limpid lake my swan-like train I found.

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1812.  Cary, Dante, Purg., XIX. 45. With swan-like wings dispred.

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1838.  Lytton, Alice, II. i. Love swelled the swanlike neck, and moulded the rounded limb.

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  b.  esp. in reference to the fabled singing of the swan just before its death: cf. SWAN sb. 2 b.

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1592.  Greene, Groat’s W. Wit, To Gentl. Rdrs. Greene … sends you his Swanne-like song, for that he feares he shal neuer againe carroll to you woonted loue layes.

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1596.  Shaks., Merch. V., III. ii. 44. If he loose he makes a Swan-like end, Fading in musique.

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1600.  Breton, Melancholike Hum., Wks. (Grosart), I. 9. My poore swanlike soule, (alas) hath no such power to sing.

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1629.  Prynne, Anti-Armin. (1630), 261. His last Swan-like Sermon.

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1678.  Yng. Man’s Call., 10. The swan-like song of the dying martyr, ‘None but Christ! None but Christ!’

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1837.  Hallam, Lit. Eur. (1847), I. i. § 2. 2. The swanlike tones of dying eloquence.

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  c.  adv. Like or in the manner of a swan.

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1635.  A. Stafford, Fem. Glory, 166. This holy man … in a divine Rapture Swanne-like (his death being then at hand) sung this his sweetest Ditty.

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1844.  A. B. Welby, Poems (1867), 49. Who would not, Swan-like, waste his sweetest breath To … die so sweet a death?

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