[app. SWASH sb.3 used attrib.]
1. Turning, etc. Inclined obliquely to the axis of the work.
Swash-work, work in which the cuttings or moldings traced round a cylinder are inclined to the axis; also called pumped work. Swash-engine, an apparatus for turning swash-work. Swash-board, swash-plate, ‘a rotating, circular plate, inclined to the plane of its revolution so as to give a vertical reciprocation to the rod, whose foot rests thereupon, and which moves between lateral guides’ (Knight, Dict. Mech., 1875); also called pumping-plate.
1680. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., xiv. 241. To the Turning of Swash-Work you must have two such Puppets as the Fore-puppet described in § 22. Ibid. Upon both the Flat sides of this Swash Board in a Diametrical Line is fastned upright an Arch of a Quadrant made of a Steel Plate…. The convex edges of these Quadrants are cut into Notches,… that according as you may have occasion to set the Swash-Board more or less a-slope, you may be accommodated with a Notch or Tooth to set R at. Ibid., 242. These Oval-Engines, Swash-Engines, and all other Engines.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 360/1. The Turning Engine [is] for the turning of Oval Work, Rose Work, and Swash Work.
1703. Lond. Gaz., No. 3887/4. A Gold Watch in a Grav’d Case…; with a Moco Stone Swash.
1812. P. Nicholson, Mech. Exerc., 356. Turning is also of different kinds, as Circular Turning, Elliptic Turning, and Swash Turning.
2. Printing. Applied to old-style capital letters having flourished strokes designed to fill up unsightly gaps between adjacent letters.
1683. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., Printing, xiii. ¶ 4. Swash-Letters, especially Q.
1867. Brande & Cox, Dict. Sci., etc., Swash Letters … have been revived of late years with the reintroduced old-fashioned types.
1899. De Vinne, Pract. Typogr. (1902), 271, note. An excellent form of old-style italic of bold face, with the swash letters and other features of quaintness.
