[f. SWEEP v. + -ING1.] 1. The action of the verb SWEET.
a. Cleansing, or removing, with or as with a broom or brush: also fig.
c. 1480. Henryson, Mor. Fab., Cok & Jasp., i. Scraipand amang the ass … He fand ane Ioly Iasp,… Was castin furth be sweping of the houss.
1519. in Archaeologia, XXV. 423. Pd to John ye Scott of Ryngstede, for swepyng of ye Kechyn Chymnye. ij d.
1558. Nottingham Rec., IV. 119. The sweppyng and dressyng of the Counselll Housse.
1591. Shuttleworths’ Acc. (Chetham Soc.), 70. Dressinge of privies and swypinge of chimnes for onne holl yere xvjd.
1639. Crabtree Lect., 25. Thou biddest them everie night looke to the sweeping of thy shop.
1770. Langhorne, Plutarch, II. 460. Fine gardens and walks that require much watering and sweeping.
1825. Cobbett, Rur. Rides (1853), 337. It is impossible for any just man to regret the sweeping away of this base race of Squires.
1863. Kingsley, Water-Bab., i. The chimneys wanted sweeping.
1867. W. W. Smyth, Coal & Coal-mining, 205. We must provide for the sweeping away of the products of breathing and combustion.
1884. H. P. Spofford, in Harper’s Mag., Nov., 889/2. She tied up her mouth when sweeping was in progress.
1900. Daily Tel., 2 Oct. (Ware). Though the time has come when Volunteers, Yeomen, and Guards should be sent home, there is still a good deal of sweeping up to be done in the Transvaal.
b. Dragging for something under water: see SWEEP v. 17. Also in mine-sweeping.
1704. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., I. Sweeping, at Sea, signifies dregging along the Ground … with a Three-fluked Grapnel, to find some Hawsar or Cable, which is slipped from an Anchor.
1775. Falck, Day’s Diving Vessel, 50. Out of the various methods of sweeping,… I pursued … the most eligible.
1895. Daily News, 14 Nov., 6/7. Her whereabouts were discovered by ‘sweeping.’
c. Astron.: see SWEEP v. 21.
1786. Sir W. Herschel, Sci. Papers (1912), I. 260. My apparatus … being from time to time adapted to the different views I had in sweeping.
1881. J. W. Webb, in Nature, 10 Nov., 36/2. It [sc. a star-cluster] may be found without circles, by patient sweeping.
d. Movement over a surface, or in an extended curve: see SWEEP v. 22, 26.
1830. Tennyson, A Character, 16. He spake of virtue … And with a sweeping of the arm, Devolved his rounded periods.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., II. I. xii. There is wheeling and sweeping, to slow, to quick and double-quick time.
1853. M. Arnold, Church of Brou, iii. 43. In the sweeping of the wind your ear The passage of the Angels’ wings will hear.
e. Rowing with sweeps: see SWEEP v. 12.
1831. Trelawny, Adv. Younger Son, xxxii. The sweeps were got out under the hot sun…. With what little air there was, and with sweeping, we continued to drop the frigate.
f. Gunnery. (See quot.)
1907. Bethell, Mod. Guns & Gunnery, 172. In a wider sense sweeping means distributing fire laterally over a given front.
g. The formation of a mold with a sweep.
1902. Lockwood’s Dict. Terms.
2. That which is swept up; matter, esp. dust or refuse, that is swept together or away.
† sing. 1480. Cov. Leet Bk., 461. Þat þe people of the Citie carion their Donge, Ramell, & swepyng of their houses.
1541. in W. H. Turner, Select. Rec. Oxford (1880), 162. To cary all sweppyng of mens howses, and the dyrte that commythe of the sweppyng of the strettes.
1665. in De Foe, Plague (Rtldg.), 63. That the Sweeping and Filth of Houses be daily carry’d away by the Rakers.
pl. 1489. Caxton, Faytes of A., II. xiii. 114. The fylthes and swepynges of the hous.
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 157. As a beasome gathereth the swepynges of a house.
c. 1604. Acc. Bk. W. Wray, in Antiquary, XXXII. 180. The markyt corne and markitte swepings was firste geven to this wakeman, 1533.
1630. B. Jonson, New Inn, Ode, iii. There, sweepings do as well As the best order’d meale.
1665. Boyle, Occas. Refl., I. xxxii. (1848), 92. Gold-smiths and Refiners are wont … carefully to save the very sweepings of their Shops.
1742. Lond. & Country Brew., III. (ed. 4), 230. At every Brewing after he had strained the Sweepings of his Coolers through a Flannel-bag.
1868. Rep. U.S. Commissioner Agric. (1869), 286. Sweepings of threads, formerly thrown away because the workmen could not unravel them.
1884. Standard, 4 Jan., 2/5. Gold leaf, known in the trade as sweepings.
b. fig. (pl.) of persons or things, in depreciative sense: Rubbish, riff-raff.
1641. Milton, Prel. Episc., Wks. 1851, III. 92. Confronting … the sacred verity of Saint Paul with the offalls, and sweepings of antiquity.
1799. J. Robertson, Agric. Perth, 59. The deformed spawn and jail sweepings of great towns.
1832. Marryat, N. Forster, xi. I wish I had fifty more of the same sort, instead of the sweepings of the gaols.
1878. Stubbs, Study Med. & Mod. Hist., viii. (1900), 182. The population [of Armenia] was composed largely of the sweepings of Asia Minor, Christian tribes which had taken refuge in the mountains.
3. attrib., as sweeping-day, -gear, -machine; sweeping-bar = sweep-bar (SWEEP- 1); sweeping-net = SWEEP-NET; sweeping-table (cf. sweep-table, SWEEP- 1), a sloping table on which ore is washed by a current of water.
1859. F. A. Griffiths, Artil. Man. (1862), 63. Limbers have the Futchells, Splinter, or *Sweeping-bar, of ash.
1889. Mary H. Foote, Last Assembly Ball, III. iv. Friday … was general *sweeping-day at Mrs. Dansken’s.
1909. Daily Chron., 28 Aug., 3/4. Boats … have been sweeping for dummy mines in the Thames estuary. The boats operate in couples, dragging their *sweeping gear between them.
[1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Street-sweeping Machine, a cart fitted with revolving brooms, or a rotatory brush and scraper, for cleansing public thoroughfares.]
1899. Daily News, 5 Dec., 9/2. It is a *sweeping-machine, and not a cart.
1809. Scott, Poacher, 77. The fish-spear barb’d, the *sweeping net are there.
1913. Proc. Ashmolean Nat. Hist. Soc. (1914), 39. Insects were somewhat disappointingly scarce, the sweeping-net only producing the large brown Dascillus cervinus, Mantura matthewsi and Meligethes solidus.
1896. Nichols & Franklin, Elem. Physics, I. xii. 200. A homogeneous substance not in a state of thermal equilibrium undergoes a *sweeping process as the substance settles down to a state of thermal equilibrium. Such a process is absolutely irreversible.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 819. In certain mines of the Hartz, tables called à balais, or *sweeping tables, are employed.
