Also 7 switz, swich. [f. prec.]
1. trans. To strike, hit, beat, flog, or whip with or as with a switch.
c. 1611. Chapman, Iliad, XXIII. 315. Thy right horse, then switching; all thy throate (Spent in encouragements) giue him.
a. 1625. Fletcher, Nice Valour, I. i. Has been thrice switz’t from seven a clock till nine.
1656. Earl Monm., trans. Boccalini’s Advts. fr. Parnass., I. xxxi. (1674), 36. [He] did so seasonably switch and put on his Horses.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. xix. (Roxb.), 179/2. Any gentleman of noble extraction … that had married for couetousnesse or with a woman of meane condition, was to be switched with wands.
1832. Ht. Martineau, Demerara, i. 11. She switched her brother with the cane she snatched from his hand.
1845. S. Judd, Margaret, II. viii. You must truss-up a cow’s tail if you don’t want to be switched when you’re milking.
1866. R. M. Ballantyne, Shifting Winds, ix. (1881), 88. We heard him switching his boots as he passed along the street.
b. intr. or absol. To strike, deal a blow or blows, with or as with a switch.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., xviii. 360. With his revengeful sword [he] swich’d after them that fled.
1676. Hobbes, Iliad (1677), 149. Ulysses with his bow still switching on.
1678. R. L’Estrange, Seneca’s Mor., III. 130. To be perpetually switching, and spurring, makes him [sc. a horse] Vitious, and Jadish.
1691. Shadwell, Scowrers, I. ii. You women are for the young stripling, that switch, and spur a short race.
2. trans. With adverbial extension: To drive with or as with a switch.
a. 1616. Beaum. & Fl., Wit without M., II. iv. Go switch me up a Covey of young Scholars.
1625. Massinger, New Way, I. i. I shall switch your brains out!
1824. Scott, St. Ronan’s, iii. Honest Nelly switched her little fish-cart downwards to St. Ronan’s Well.
1890. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Col. Reformer, xviii. (1891), 218. He … observed his master switch beast after beast into the … receptacles for cattle.
† b. fig. To urge on, impel, incite. Obs.
1648. Winyard, Midsummer-Moon, 2. He comes forth like mad Orestes switched on by furies.
1659. in Burton’s Diary (1828), IV. 297. To retrench the time is very acceptable; but why we should go to it so switched and spurred, I know not.
1672. Mede’s Wks., Life p. xlv. How this, I say, would switch and spur on their Industries.
3. To flourish like a switch, to whisk, lash; to move (something) with a sudden jerk; spec. in Angling (see quot. 1867).
1842. J. Wilson, Chr. North, I. v. 205. Not a bird can open his wing, nor a rat switch his tail, without scattering the straw like chaff.
1856. Miss Mulock, J. Halifax, xiv. He … stood switching his riding-whip after the old habit.
1867. F. Francis, Angling, v. 138. In very windy weather, or in difficult places,… the angler … will have to switch his line. Raising the point of the rod high in the air,… he must make a sharp forward and downward cut.
1870. Rock, Textile Fabr., I. 51. The … animal has switched its tail into the last link of the chain.
b. intr. To bend as a switch or flexible twig.
1854. Ruskin, Lect. Archit., ii. § 37. A branch of wild rose, which switches round at the angle, embracing the minute figure of the bishop.
4. trans. To cut off the switches or projecting twigs from; to trim (a tree, hedge, etc.).
1811. W. Nicol, Planter’s Kal. (1812), 460. Switch and clip thorn and other deciduous hedges.
1812. [see SWITCHING vbl. sb. 3].
1826. Scott, Jrnl., 29 Oct. Elms cruelly cropped, pollarded, and switched.
1843. A. Hepburn, in Zoologist, I. 297. [Hedges] are commonly pruned or switched every year.
5. To switch a rasper: see SWISH v. 3.
1836. T. Hook, G. Gurney, I. 225. He was killed, switching a rasper.
6. To turn (a railway train, car, etc.) on to another line by means of a switch; to shunt; also intr. for pass. b. intr. Of a railway line: To branch or turn off at a switch. U.S.
1875. L. F. Tasistro, trans. Comte de Paris’s Civ. War Amer., I. 230. Two branches of the Alexandria and Lynchburg line switch off to enter the Valley of Virginia.
1891. C. Roberts, Adrift Amer., 60. The car that I was in was switched out of the train and left in the yard there.
1901. Munsey’s Mag., XXV. 698/2. I knew they changed engines here, but they switched the train, and I lost it.
1904. Daily News, 15 July, 7/1. The freight train was switching, and thus occupied both tracks.
7. fig. To turn off, divert. Chiefly U.S.
1860. O. W. Holmes, Elsie V., xvii. (1861), 209. That curious state which is so common in good ministers,… in which they contrive to switch off their logical faculties on the narrow side-track of their technical dogmas.
1897. Globe, 18 Feb., 1/4. Mr. Julian Hawthorne has explained to an interviewer that his recent infertility as a novelist is due to the fact that he has ‘somehow been switched off into journalism.’
1897. Conan Doyle, Trag. Korosko, vi. The Colonel … switched the conversation off to the chances of the morrow.
b. intr. or absol.; in Cards, to lead from a different suit.
1906. Westm. Gaz., 20 Oct., 14/1. It is possible that the king will be held up, in which case, after making the ten, knave in dummy, he will switch to diamonds.
8. trans. In electrical apparatus: To direct (a current) by means of a switch; to put on or off, i.e., connect or disconnect with a battery, or with a particular line or circuit, e.g., on a telephone; to turn (an electric light) on or off.
1881. Daily News, 14 Nov., 5/3. Subscribers have become accustomed to be ‘switched on’ to each other.
1884. C. G. W. Lock, Workshop Receipts, Ser. III. 72/1. The current will be ‘switched’ into the signalling apparatus.
1891. Times, 28 Sept., 13/5. By automatically switching in or out of circuit a larger or smaller number of accumulator cells.
1907. H. Wyndham, Flare of Footlights, ii. She … switched on a single electric light.
