Also 7–8 swaith, swath. [OE. *swæþ(?), swaþ-, only in dat. pl. swaþum; for related forms see SWATHE v., SWETHE, SWADDLE, SWEDDLE.]
1. A band of linen, woollen, or other material in which something is enveloped; a wrapping; sometimes, a single fold or winding of such; also collect. sing. a. gen.
c. 1050. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 484/17. Institis, in swaþum. [Gloss on John xi. 44.]
1598. Florio, Banda … a skarfe or a swathe.
1666. Wood, Life (O. H. S.), II. 88. 3 crevetts, 4 swaiths, 2 handkerchiefs.
1681. Grew, Musæum, IV. iii. 373. The Handle, adorned with fine Straws laid along the sides, and lap’d round about it, in several distinct Swaths.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 90, ¶ 7. Long Pieces of Linen, which they folded about me till they had wrapt me in above an hundred Yards of Swathe.
1737. Whiston, Josephus, Antiq., III. vii. § 3. A cap,… made of thick swaths.
1818. Keats, Prophecy, 21. Though the linen that will be Its swathe, is on the cotton tree.
1911. ‘Geo. A. Birmingham,’ Lighter Side Irish Life, vii. 159. The wedding feast is often visited by young men masked and disguised with swathes of straw tied over their clothes.
† b. sing. & pl. An infant’s swaddling-bands. Obs.
1565. Cooper, Thesaurus, Crepundia … the first apparayle of children, as, swathes,… and such lyke.
1580. Fermor Acc., in Archæol. Jrnl. (1851), VIII. 186. Ye other daughter to be pictured [on the side of the Tomb] as dieinge in ye cradle or swathes.
1607. Shaks., Timon, IV. iii. 252. Had’st thou like vs from our first swath proceeded.
1646. Lluelyn, Men-Miracles, etc., 98.
| Thou that in Conquests didst thy Non-age bathe, | |
| And like Alcides combate in thy Swathe. |
1742. Blair, Grave, 138. Like new-born Infant wound up in his Swathes.
1786. Misc. Ess., in Ann. Reg., 125/1. [The infant] is not there swaddled and filleted up in a swathe.
c. A surgical bandage.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, Pref. 1. Engines, Swathes, Ties, Bands and Ligatures, described by Hippocrates.
1656. J. Smith, Pract. Physick, 162. Swaths, which are either of leather … or of wollen.
1722. Douglas, in Phil. Trans., XXXII. 85. I turn’d a swath a little broader than the Patient’s Hand once round him.
1806. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life, III. (ed. 3), 43. My limping gait, and this bewitching swathe about my head.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., II. 376. Strips of lint … may be laid along the … swelling … and covered with the flannel swathe as before.
2. a. transf. A natural formation constituting a wrapping; † a covering membrane, integument; an object that enwraps something, as a cloud.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 191. The outward coate inuesting the kidneyes which is commonly called fascia or the swath.
1733. Cheyne, Eng. Malady, I. x. § 4. 98. These Swaiths and Membranes burst and break naturally.
1871. Daily News, 19 Aug., 5/4. Away towards the deer-forests of Ardkinglas, grey swathes of cloud still hung about the hills.
1880. Browning, Pan & Luna, 49. The downy swathes [of cloud about the moon] combine.
1891. Meredith, Poems, Eng. bef. Storm, iv. When … high in swathe of smoke the mast Its fighting rag outrolled.
† b. = LIST sb.3 6 b, LISTEL. Obs.
1665. Moxon, trans. Barozzio’s Vignola, 22. The nether Band or Swathe of the Column. Ibid., 58. The upper Torus, or Swathe.
c. fig. Something that restricts or confines like a swaddling-band.
1864. Spectator, 31 Dec., 1500. Tied up helplessly in tight swathes of ignorance. Ibid. (1906), 3 Feb., 176/1. Within the swathes and fetters of civilisation.
3. Comb.: † swathe-fish, the ribbon-fish.
1668. Charleton, Onomast., 126. Tænia … the Swath-fish.
1901. Clive Holland, Mousmé, 79. With a slight but graceful bending of her knees beneath her swath-like kimono.
