Now only dial. Also 7 sworth, 8 swarthe. [OE. swearþ: see SWARD sb. and cf. SWARF sb.3]
1. Skin, rind; fig. the surface, outside.
c. 725. Corpus Gloss., C 198. Cater, suearth.
c. 1050. Ags. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 363/9. Catrum, swearð.
c. 1450. St. Cuthbert (Surtees), 2280. For oft knelyng his knees boun, A grete swarth was on þaim groune.
1807. Stagg, Poems, 49. Lest for the swarth I past retrievan, The substance torfeit.
1869. Lonsdale Gloss., Swarth,… any outward covering, as the rind of bacon.
1878. Cumbld. Gloss., Swarth, the skin of hams and bacon.
2. Green turf, grass land, greensward.
a. 1400[?]. Morte Arth., 1126. One the erthe [he] hittez A swerde lenghe with-in þe swarthe. Ibid., 1466. Swyftly with swerdes, they swappene there-aftyre,… That alle swellttez one swarthe.
a. 1552. Leland, Itin. (1906), VI. 79. In Cairarvonshire … is Llin edwarchen, wher [is] the Swymming Island, and ther of it hath the name as of a suimming swarth of yerth.
1594. Plat, Jewell-ho., I. 19. Cloddes of earth … such as are full of swarth.
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Country Farm, V. vi. 533. New broken swarthes.
1664. Evelyn, Sylva, 18. The swarth par’d first away, and the earth stirred a foot deep or more.
1770–4. A. Hunter, Georg. Ess. (1803), I. 141. Two acres of rich sand land, which the year before had been ploughed out of swarth.
1794. Vancouver, Agric. Cambridge, 93. The old swarthe produces a very indifferent herbage, but may be much improved, by breaking up, [etc.].
1798. Trans. Soc. Arts, XVI. 242. He has it in contemplation to leave the rest to swarth without sowing seeds on it.
b. qualified by green (or grassy).
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Country Farm, III. i. 335. As soone as you see these bankes firme, and beginning to grow to haue a greene swarth vpon them.
1637. B. Jonson, Sad Shepherd, I. v. On every greene sworth, and in every path.
1751. R. Paltock, P. Wilkins, xi. (1883), 34/1. I walked over the green swarth to the wood.
1784. Cowper, Task, I. 110. Through lanes, Of grassy swarth close cropt by nibbling sheep.
† c. transf. Applied to the top layers of soil. Obs.
1649. Blithe, Eng. Improv., vii. 38. This … cold hungry water is found, beneath the first and second swarth of thy Lands.
d. attrib.
1598. Fitzherbert’s Husb., viii. (1882), 132. If you sowe Winter-corne … vpon swarth ground.
1607. Markham, Caval., VI. ii. 5. Some plaine leuell Meddowe or such like greene swarth ground.
1794. Act for inclosing South Kelsey, 26. Any old Green Swarth Ground.
1876. Mid Yorks. Gloss., s.v., ‘Swarth-balks,’ the end portions of a field, left unploughed, for a cart-way.
