Also swosh. [Imitative of the sound of splashing or agitated water, or of a resounding blow. Cf. swish.]
A. int. or adv. Expressive of the fall of a heavy body or blow: With a crash.
1538. Bale, Thre Lawes, 393. Haue in than at a dash, With swash myry annet swash.
1582. Stanyhurst, Æneis, II. (Arb.), 53. Pat fals thee turret, the Greeks with crash swash yt heapeth.
1863. Mrs. Gaskell, Sylvia, xv. II. 7. If a hadn’t been too quick for her, it would have a’ gone swash down i’ t’ litter.
B. sb.
I. 1. Pig-wash; also, wet refuse or filth.
1528. Tindale, Parable Wicked Mammon, Wks. (1573), 65/1. His stomacke abhorreth longyng after slibbersause and swashe, at which a whole stomacke is readye to cast hys gorge.
1634. Meres, Wits Commonw., II. 50. Swine … refuse partriges and delicats, and doe greedily hunt after Acornes and other swash.
1847. Halliwell, Swash … (4) Refuse; hog-wash.
1878. Cumbrld. Gloss., Swash, wet stuff.
1893. Times (weekly ed.), 10 Feb., 114. The well-filled troughs of swash and potatoes round which I have seen pigs crowd.
2. A body of water moving forcibly or dashing against something.
An alleged sense ‘stream, puddle of water,’ entered in Phillips’s World of Words, ed. Kersey, 1706, is not otherwise authenticated.
1671. Skinner, Etymol., Swash, a great Swash of water, magnus & cum magno impetu ruens aquarum Torrens.
1844. W. H. Maxwell, Wanderings in Highlands, xviii. II. 5. Some ‘swash’ in the Goodwins.
1852. Hawthorne, Blithedale Rom., xxvii. Up came a white swash to the surface of the river. It was the flow of a woman’s garments.
1860. Wilts. Archæol. Mag., VI. 380, note. A man in answer to my question of how the rain seemed to fall, said ‘It came down in swashes.’
3. Chiefly U.S. = SWATCH sb.3
1670–1. Narborough, Jrnl., in Acc. Sev. Late Voy., I. (1694), 46. It drains into salt Water-swashes. Ibid., 52. I sent the Boat for Water to a Swash on the East-side.
1775. Romans, Florida, App. 78. As the bank is bound with a reef here, you must pick your way through that, which you may, as there are several swashes, which though they are narrow, have no less than 11 or 12 feet thro’.
1788. T. Jefferson, Writ. (1859), II. 453. Having got themselves near the swash, at the mouth of the Boristhenes.
1869. New Orleans Bee, in Schele de Vere, Americanisms (1872), 556. It is said they took refuge in the swash behind the house.
4. A heavy blow, esp. of, or upon, some yielding substance; the sound of this.
1789. Davidson, Seasons, Spring, 32. Forthwith amain he [sc. the salmon] plunges on his prey, Wi’ eager swash.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxvi. (1856), 211. The voices of the ice and the heavy swash of the overturned hummock-tables.
1865. G. Macdonald, Alec Forbes, 29. The cruel serpent of leather went at him, coiling round his legs with a sudden, hissing swash.
1866. Gregor, Banffsh. Gloss., Swash, (1) a severe blow. (2) A severe dash.
1898. J. Paton, Castlebraes, ii. 49. I laid ma Heezel Rung, a second swash, athwart the safter pairts.
5. The action of water dashing or washing against the side of a cliff, ship, etc., or of waves against each other; the sound accompanying this.
1847–54. Webster, Swash … 2. Impulse of water flowing with violence.
1849. Cupples, Green Hand, ix. The lazy swash of the water round our fore-chains.
1849. W. S. Mayo, Kaloolah, ii. (1850), 21. The captain fancied that he heard the swash of the water against the sides of a ship.
1863. Hawthorne, Our Old Home (1879), 279. The swash and swell of the passing steamers.
1883. G. H. Boughton, in Harper’s Mag., Feb., 393/1. We were steaming along splendidly now, sending up a fine wash and swash along the banks.
1892. H. Hutchinson, Fairway Island, 25. The swash of the sea at the cliff foot.
6. A watery condition of land; ground under water.
1864. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., XVI. xiv. IV. 478. Waters all out, ground in a swash with December rains.
1891. The Auk, Jan., 65. Here [sc. Andros in the Bahamas] the ground is soft, and in wet weather almost entirely under water; hence the peculiar appropriateness of the local term swash.
II. 7. A swaggerer; a swashbuckler; now Sc. an ostentatious person (cf. SWASH a.1, SWASHING ppl. a. 1).
1549. Chaloner, Erasm. on Folly, D iij b. Commenly thei that bringe any valiant feate to passe, are good blouddes, venturers, compaignions, swasshes.
1579. Gosson, Sch. Abuse (Arb.), 46. Every Duns will be a Carper, every Dick Swash a common Cutter.
1584. R. Wilson, Three Ladies Lond. (1592), A 3. I will flaunt it and brave it after the lusty swash.
1593. G. Harvey, Pierce’s Super., 117. The noddy Nash, whom euery seruing Swash With pot-iestes dash, and euery whip-dog lash.
1637. I. Jones & Davenant, Brit. Triumphans, 17. With Courtly Knights, not roaring country swashes, Hath beene her breeding still.
1659. T. Pecke, Parnassi Puerp., 16. Two Swashes did the fair Camilla court.
1693. Southerne, Maid’s last Prayer, II. ii. I remember your Dammee-boys, your Swashes, your Tuquoques.
1824. Miss Ferrier, Inher., xviii. A great gormandizing swash.
1866. Gregor, Banffsh. Gloss., Swash … (1) A vapouring dandy.
8. Swagger; swashbuckling.
1593. G. Harvey, Pierce’s Super., ***j. If nothing can the booted Souldiour tame … But Swash will still his trompery aduaunce.
1605. A. Warren, Poor Man’s Pass., E 3. I would elect, Flaunt, Cut, and Swash for mates, For choise Companions, pleasure, mirth, delight.
1822. Maginn, in Blackw. Mag., XI. 370. The stamping, ramping, swaggering, staggering, leathering swash of an Irishman.
1854. Miss Baker, Northampt. Gloss., s.v., What a swash he cuts!
1866. Gregor, Banffsh. Gloss., Swash … (3) The act of walking with a haughty, silly air.
III. 9. attrib.: swash bank (see quot.); swash channel, swash-way, ‘a channel across a bank, or among shoals, as the noted instance between the Goodwin Sands’ (Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., 1867).
1852. Wiggins, Embanking, 25. The *swash bank, which, having only to sustain the broken tops of the waves, is but 21/2 feet high and 21/2 feet wide at top.
1885. Century Mag., XXIX. 742. The Minnesota, taking the middle or *swash channel.
1839. Civil Engin. & Arch. Jrnl., II. 221/1. Forming track-paths across *swash-ways in Loch Dochfour.
1883. Chambers’s Jrnl., 18 Aug., 525/2. Certain narrow fareways which seam the sands at low tide,… are called on the south side of the Roach ‘swatch’-ways, but beyond the Crouch ‘swash’-ways.
