I. [f. SWING v.1 + -ER1 2.] One who or that which swings.
1. One who flourishes something about, or causes it to oscillate.
1543. Bale, Yet a Course, 83. Holy water swyngers, and euen songe clatterers.
1897. Daily News, 27 May, 2/5. Club Swinging…. The well-known swinger of Indian clubs, brought his attempt to swing a pair of two pound clubs for thirty consecutive hours to a successful conclusion.
2. a. A person who swings.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 492, ¶ 3. These [familiar romps], Mr. Spectator, are the Swingers…. They get on Ropes, as you must have seen the children, and are swung by their Men Visitants.
1877. G. H. Kingsley, Sport & Trav. (1900), 331. The strong man becomes a swinger in hammocks, a sucker of oranges, a smoker of pipes.
(b) A Hindu who performs the penance of swinging: see SWING v.1 6 (b).
1793. Medical Spectator, II. No. 39. 242. Every thing being ready for the swinger, he kneels upon the ground, when a very dexterous operator fixes two strong iron hooks into the common integuments betwixt his shoulders.
1893. Times, 11 July, 3/6. The writer afterwards interviewed a swinger. He was rather the worse for opium, but none the worse for his swing.
b. A thing that swings to and fro; † a swing for recreation; a kind of lever; a coat with swinging tails or skirt.
Three legs and a swinger: said of an animal that has only three sound legs, the fourth hanging or dragging limp through injury; hence of a dilapidated chair, etc.
1662. J. Davies, trans. Olearius’ Voy. Ambass., 93. I have seen publick Swinging-places. They … giving two or three pence to little Boies who keep Swingers rendy.
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 426. 19 and 20 act as swingers or levers from the joints 21 and 22.
1863. Brierley, Waverlow, 147. The latter class of people did not care for misfits at all, and would don a broad-lapped ‘swinger’ or a swallow-tailed coat with equal indifference.
1893. Westm. Gaz., 12 May, 1/3. Royal Hampton had no pretensions to winning although he took the City and Suburban on ‘three legs and a swinger’ in the following spring.
1916. C’tess Barcyǹska, Honey-Pot, ii. 14. Be careful of the chair! It’s a real antique, only three legs and a swinger!
† 3. ? A large sword. (Cf. early Flem. swinghe.)
1673. Hickeringill, Greg. F. Greyb., 42. The old Bishops … that ne’r … so much as knew how to set the Periwig and Galloshoes, much less the true timing and accenting of a Rapper, and double swinger.
II. (f. SWING sb.2 12 d + -ER1.] 4. Each of the middle pair of horses in a team of six.
1869. Putnam’s Mag., III. (N.S.) Feb., 163/2. Each wagon is usually drawn by three span of mules, of which the lighter and forward pair are leaders, the next pair ‘swingers,’ and the rear or heaviest pair are wheelers.
