[Imitative. Cf. prec.]
1. intr. To move with a swish (see prec. B. 1); to make the sound expressed by ‘swish.’
1756. [E. Perronet], Mitre, I. liii. Next see two huge Academies:… With these conjoin a thousand more, Of vaulted roof, or humble floor;… Where swish the rods or whirl the toys.
1860. G. H. K., in Vac. Tour. (1864), 116. The rain pattering against the window-panes, and the birches outside swishing and rasping against the walls.
1860. O. W. Holmes, Elsie V., x. (1891), 139. The rustic who was … swishing through the grass with his scythe.
1877. Black, Green Past., xviii. 147. The wheels swished through the pools.
1885. Chamb. Jrnl., 15 Aug., 515/2. The water swishing amongst the pebbles at the far end of the cove.
1898. G. W. Steevens, With Kitchener to Khartum, 146. The bullets were swishing and lashing now like rain on a pond.
2. trans. To cause to move with a swish; esp. to whisk (the tail) about.
1799. Coleridge, Devil’s Thoughts, ii. And backward and forward he swish’d his long tail As a Gentleman swishes his cane.
1862. Whyte-Melville, Inside Bar! 347. I confess I have no great confidence in a thorough-bred mare, that swishes her tail a good deal in harness.
1880. Jefferies, Greene Ferne Farm, 263. Swishing the briar, which bent easily.
b. intr. (const. with).
1854. P. B. St. John, Amy Moss, 106. As he advanced swishing before him with a stick he had picked up.
1866. Blackmore, Cradock Nowell, xix. He swished away very hard with the broom the moment he saw such a visitor.
c. trans. To move or remove with (or as with) a swishing movement.
1894. Daily News, 25 Sept., 5/6. 80,000 men equipped as a modern army cannot be swished about in the sort of way that is assumed in these discussions.
1904. A. St. H. Gibbons, Africa, I. v. 59. We were again swished downstream at the rate of some ten miles an hour.
3. intr. To jump a high hedge, brushing through the twigs at the top and making them bend. Also to swish a rasper (see Eng. Dial. Dict.).
1825. Alken, Nat. Sports Gt. Brit. (1903), Plate 15. Swishing at a Rasper.
1864. G. A. Lawrence, Maurice Dering, II. 22. Breaking through the irregular line [of the enemy] … as they would have ‘swished’ through a bulfinch in the Shires.
4. trans. To flog, esp. at school.
1856. Thackeray, Misc., Fashionable Authoress, II. 470. Doctor Wordsworth and assistants would swish that error out of him in a way that need not here be mentioned.
1872. Routledge’s Ev. Boy’s Ann., 614/2. As he wouldn’t tell he must be swished.
1875. Reynardson, Down the Road, 18. How he [sc. Dr. Keate] used to ‘swish’ a fellow if he caught him up at barracks!
1896. E. A. King, Ital. Highways, 339. One small boy [in a fresco] is being horsed on the back of another and soundly swished.
5. To brush with a swishing sound.
1889. The County, xxx. The long grass moistly swishes my petticoats.
Hence Swished, Swishing ppl. adjs.; also Swisher, a flogger.
1860. Thackeray, Round. Papers, Hundred Y. Hence (1861), 137. Here are the scourges. Choose me a nice long, swishing, buddy one.
1869. Gibbon, R. Gray, vii. The brig was cutting through the water with a swishing sound.
1884. E. Yates, Recoll., I. ii. A desperate swisher the doctor.
1891. Zangwill, Bachelors’ Club, 181. Large banks of clouds … melted into swishing showers.
1898. Wollocombe, Morn till Eve, vii. 83. The leading crew, with a long swishing stroke, pass the barges.
