Forms: 6 soope, 6–7 swoope, 7 swope, swoup, 7– swoop. [f. next; but the source of sense 1 is not clear.]
† 1. A blow, stroke; also fig.; in Fencing, see quot. 1711. Obs.
1544–5. Paget, in Waters, Chesters of Chicheley (1878), I. iv. 33. Some in dede shall wynne by it, who owe more than they have here, but … dyvers others a greate nombre are like to have a great swoope by it [sc. the embargo on English goods] having much here and owing nothing or little.
1589. Hay any Work, 11. I come vpon you … with 4. or 5. such drie soopes, as Iohn of London with his two hand sword neuer gaue the like.
1711. Wylde, Eng. Master Defence, 26. A Blow I call the Swoop, is made when you lie upon an outside thus, Let your Point drop Hanging-wise, and bring it round the Point of your Opponent’s Sword, and Pitch it home to his Face.
† 2. An act of sweeping or clearing away; a clearance. Cf. SWEEP sb. 1. Obs. rare.
1612–39. Breton, Wits Private Wealth, Wks. (Grosart), II. 8/2. Death where he commeth, makes a swoope with all persons.
3. The act of swooping down; esp. the sudden pouncing of a bird of prey from a height upon its quarry.
1605. [see b].
1698. Fryer, Acc. E. India & P., 292. Some of them [sc. hawks] in their Swoops are so couragious, as to seize the Heads of Deer or Antelopes.
1795. Coleridge, To Author of Poems, 14. The vapour-poison’d Birds, that fly too low, Fall with dead swoop, and to the bottom go.
1841. S. Bamford, Life of Radical (1844), 116. Darkness came down like a swoop.
1847. Longf., Ev., I. i. 115. Swift as the swoop of the eagle.
1852. R. F. Burton, Falconry Valley Indus, v. 62. The kite … wriggled out of the way of their swoop.
b. At one (fell, etc.) swoop, at one sudden descent, as of a bird of prey; hence, at a single blow or stroke.
1605. Shaks., Macb., IV. iii. 219. Oh Hell-Kite! All? What, All my pretty Chickens, and their Damme At one fell swoope?
1612. Webster, White Devil, I. i. 6. If she [sc. Fortune] give ought, she deales it in smal percels, That she may take away all at one swope.
1692. R. L’Estrange, Fables, lxxii. I. 70. The Eagle … fell into his [sc. the fox’s] Quarters and carry’d away a Whole Litter of Cubbs at a Swoop.
1825. T. Hook, Sayings, Ser. II. Sutherl. (Colburn), 30. That the whole of this detail would probably reach Mr. Lazenby’s ears, and destroy, at one fell swoop, all his hopes and expectations.
1847. Disraeli, Tancred, II. v. The Church Temporalities’ Bill in 1833, which at one swoop had suppressed the Irish episcopates.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., I. iv. The huffing of Miss Bella, and the loss of three of her men at a swoop.
c. A sudden descent, as by a body of troops, esp. upon something that it is intended to seize.
1824. W. Irving, T. Trav., II. iv. (1848), 108. He made one fell swoop upon purse, watch, and all. Ibid. (1837), Capt. Bonneville, I. xii. 211. A swoop was made through the neighbouring pastures by the Blackfeet, and eighty-six of the finest horses carried off.
1871. L. Stephen, Playgr. Eur. (1894), xi. 262. Any one … who has trembled at the deadly swoop of the gale.
1885. Runciman, Skippers & Sh., 59. As the ship gave her long swoops down the sides of the seas.
1894. J. A. Steuart, In Day of Battle, xv. It was the pipes that won Waterloo, that saved Lucknow, that broke the Russian swoop at Balaclava.
1895. Huxley, in Life (1900), II. xxiii. 400. Influenza came down upon me with a swoop.
