Also 5 schwoppinge. [f. as prec. + -ING2.]
1. † Striking; † flapping; dial. swooping, pouncing.
c. 1450. Cov. Myst., Innoc. (Shaks. Soc.), 182. With swappynge swerde now is he shorn The heed ryght fro the nekke!
1575. Churchyard, Chippes (1578), Ciij. With swapping Besome in her hand.
1642. H. More, Song of Soul, II. i. I. xi. Fowls flie by, and with their swapping wings Beat the inconstant aire.
1821. Clare, Vill. Minstr., I. 18. Chick, and duck, and gosling gone astray; All falling prizes to the swopping kite.
2. Very big, ‘thumping,’ whopping.’ slang or colloq.
1440. Walsingham, in Hone, Year Bk. (1832), 90. In delvinge he myghte … find a schwoppinge mallarde imprisoned in the sinke or sewere.
1589. Nashe, Countercuffe, Wks. 1904, I. 61. Pasquill met him … with … a swapping Ale-dagger at his back.
1624. Middleton, Game at Chess, IV. ii. Ay, marry, sir, here ’s swapping sins indeed!
c. 1662. in Wood, Life (O.H.S.), III. 513. Hee was a swapping swapping mallard.
a. 1843. Southey, Comm.-pl. Bk., IV. 425/1. A swopping mallard found which used to come and feed there.
1886. Pall Mall G., 28 Oct., 6/1. We have seven professors of the jargon called law, and all with swopping salaries.
