[f. SWAY v. + -ING2.]
I. † 1. Moving. Obs. rare.
13[?]. E. E. Allit. P., B. 420. [The ark] Drof vpon þe depe dam … With-outen … any sweande sayl to seche after hauen.
II. 2. Exercising power, influence, or control; influential, controlling. Obs. exc. as the second element of compounds, e.g., all-swaying.
1625. in Foster, Eng. Factories India (1909), III. 106. [All matters of moment are to be determined by the three captains…; Weddell to have] a double or swaying voyce.
1647. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., VII. § 319. A Member of the House of Commons, and of a swaying Interest there.
1684. O. Heywood, Diaries, etc. (1885), IV. 111. A sweying man … to moderate the bench.
1711. in 10th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., App. V. 171. A directing and swayeing head.
3. Vacillating.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 74/2. The Laws of Coursing … often alter according to some Mens swaying Fancies.
4. In horses, ‘a hollow sinking down of the Back-bone’ (Bailey, 1726).
5. Moving to and fro.
1847. Thackeray, Lords & Liv., iii. The mad swaying rush of the horses was reduced to a … steady gallop.
1875. McLaren, Serm., Ser. II. vii. 121. The swaying branches creak and groan.
1899. E. J. Chapman, Drama of Two Lives, Snake-Witch, 53. The flood-swept land and the swaying sea.
Hence Swayingly adv., with a swaying motion.
c. 1854. in Circ. Sc. (c. 1865), I. 294/2. On the tall poplar tree Perch’d swayingly.
1882. Proctor, in Contemp. Rev., March, 476. Carried, not bodily, but still swayingly, against the direction of rotation.
