[Imitative.]
A. int. or adv. Expressive of the sound made by the kind of movement defined in B. 1; with a swish. Also reduplicated swish, swish.
1837. Hood, Agric. Distress, 35. When swish! in bolts our bacon-hog Atwixt the legs o’ Master Blogg.
1890. Scribner’s Mag., Nov., 565/2. Swish went the whip.
1899. Crockett, Kit Kennedy, 181. Swish-swish went Kit’s feet through the dew-drenched grass.
a. 1911. in ‘Geo. A. Birmingham,’ Lighter Side Irish Life, iv. 72. So the executioner swung his sword and swish went poor John’s [the Baptist’s] head.
B. sb.
1. A hissing sound like that produced by a switch or similar slender object moved rapidly through the air or an object moving swiftly in contact with water; movement accompanied by such sound.
1820. Clare, Rural Life (ed. 3), 60. I’d just streak’d down, and with a swish Whang’d off my hat soak’d like a fish.
1862. Kingsley, in Macm. Mag., Oct., 443. The salmon … went on … with a swish or two of his tail which made the stream boil again.
1862. Tyndall, Mountaineer., vi. 45. The swish of many a minor streamlet mingled with the muffled roar of the large one.
1878. Stevenson, Inland Voy., 200. The rhythmical swish of boat and paddle in the water.
1886. J. R. Rees, Divers. Bookworm, iii. 95. The swish of the angler’s rod.
1887. Knox Little, Broken Vow, vi. 86. I drew the curtains away with a good swish behind the dressing-table.
1895. G. Meredith, Amazing Marriage, ix. The willowy swish of silken dresses.
1896. ‘Ian Maclaren,’ Kate Carnegie, 289. In my study I hear the swish of the scythe.
b. Reduplicated swish, swish or swish-swish.
1833. M. Scott, Tom Cringle, viii. I heard the frequent swish-swish of the water, as they threw bucketsful on the sails to thicken them.
1894. A. Robertson, Nuggets, etc., 61. The swish-swish of wild cats and the cries of opossums were heard.
1900. M. H. Grant, Words by Eyewitness, vii. (1902), 145. The incessant swish, swish of bullets.
2. A ‘dash’ of water upon a surface.
1852. G. H. Kingsley, Sport & Trav. (1900), 524. So up we went … getting a shivering ‘swish’ of ice-cold water in our faces.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Swish, an old term for the light driving spray of the sea.
1879. Black, White Wings, xvii. The brave White Dove goes driving through those heavy seas,… followed by a swish of water that rushes along the lee scuppers.
3. Short for swish-broom, -tail (see SWISH-).
1844. H. Stephens, Bk. Farm, II. 697. A neat swish is all that is requisite [for a draught-horse] at any time.
1873. E. Spon, Workshop Receipts, Ser. I. 62/1. A small broom, termed a swish, made from the waste cuttings of cane.
1901. Alldridge, Sherbro, xxiii. 246. A Madeira mosquito swish, which was simply a horse’s tail fastened to the end of a short stick.
4. A cane or birch for flogging; also, a stroke with this.
1860. Sat. Rev., 12 May, 600/2. If he flogs, it is according … to a fixed tariff of ‘swishes.’
1885. Meredith, Diana, xxvi. A man who has not blessedly become acquainted with the swish in boyhood.
