swash

Etymology

Scandinavian. Compare Swedish dialect svasska, Norwegian svakka, English dialect swack (“a blow”).

noun

1. The water that washes up on shore after an incoming wave has broken.
   It is not the direct battering that breaks the dyke, but overtopping, when the flow of water sweeps away the inland face, so swash length is a vital thing to accommodate, and to do that you must make an estimate of the highest possible tides. 1997, Paul Shepheard, The Cultivated Wilderness, Or, What is Landscape?, page 147
   The first process occurs when swash mixes air and sand, trapping air bubbles just below the beach surface. 2011, Orrin H. Pilkey, William J. Neal, James Andrew Graham Cooper, The World's Beaches: A Global Guide to the Science of the Shoreline, page 141
   The swash is made up of the remnants of a breaking wave. 2014, Orrin H. Pilkey, Tracy Monegan Rice, William J. Neal, How to Read a North Carolina Beach
2. A narrow sound or channel of water lying within a sand bank, or between a sand bank and the shore, or a bar over which the sea washes.
   According to what you say about the shells, there ought to be a thousand flamingos feeding in this very swash at this instant. 1924, Mary Mapes Dodge, St. Nicholas, page 1062
   Marks northwest junction of main and swash channels. 1928, United States. Bureau of Light-Houses, Atlantic Coast of the United States, page 366
   This is defined as a modified ridge or swash bar that develops into a berm on the swash bar's seaward margin (Coastal Research Group, 1969, p. 455). 1987, Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists, SEPM Reprint Series, page 101
   At Cape Hatteras, numerous vessels ran aground, “driven from their anchors and grounded on the swash and bar.” 2010, Janette Thomas Greenwood, First Fruits of Freedom, page 31
3. A wet splashing sound.
   As a first warning the boiling liquid lifts the cover and washes over it with a noisy swash and clatter. 1906, Good Housekeeping - Volume 42, page 352
   The sound of the furious "swash, swash,” as it struck, carried even to the depths of the holds where the engines churned madly to keep the prow in the teeth of the waves. 1943, Ella M. Noller, Rendezvous With Victory, page 44
   I'd wish with a swish, or I'd wash with a swash - and I'd dash (but not clash) with a dish ( but never squish your good things ) 1979, Sun & Moon - Issues 6-11, page 22
   I listen to the soothing swash, swash of the waves and feel renewed strength in mind 2013, Bonnie Garmon, Jim Garmon, Indian River Country : Volume 1 1880-1889
4. A smooth stroke; a swish.
   Dip in and out quickly and with a swash three or four times. This serves to wash off the dust that has settled while the fruit is on the trays. 1895, California. Legislature, Journals of the Legislature of the State of California, page 271
   Then he cut down a long forked stick, the anti-ophidian of the poor, and probing with the stick in one hand, began to clean the yuca grove with the machete in the other, displaying the lazy elegance of an athlete – swash, swash, swash – free and easy but looking carefully at each detail. 2005, Jimmy Weiskopf, Yajé: The New Purgatory : Encounters with Ayahuasca, page 91
   It had all been like a swash of pink cool-aid punch in her surprised face,some brigand of flailing emotions, in her golden pocket-book, where they could hear a fading swami-echo speaking out for animal rights, and damned yogic impulse. 2021, Carrie Chang, Sushi Girl
   She does not know whose hands are whose, but feels the swash and jangle of a tickle shoot up her neck. 2021, Felicia Kate Solomon, Lucia’s Poltergeist
5. A swishing noise.
   The swash of the whirling blades reminds me vaguely of the noise conifers make. 2003, Alfred Wohlpart, The Trail Home: Along the Pacific Crest, page 55
   Nothing but more swash and click, until l heard... “Eurah!” Crunching! There it was: a definite crunching. 2011, Barbara Allan Hite, Letters from Jane: The Adventures of an Abandoned Kitten, page 15
   Swash! Swish! Swash! The wood saws chimed as they went back and forth cutting down tree branches. 2019, Veronica M. E. Zuill, The Most Unforgettable Moment: Our Biggest Mistake Ever
6. (typography) A long, protruding ornamental line or pen stroke found in some typefaces and styles of calligraphy.
   There is a group of decorative swash initials, too. 1955, Club of Printing Women of New York, Antique, Modern & Swash: A Brief History of Women in Printing, page 18
   so swash versions of the capitals were produced as alternatives. 1986, Walter Tracy, Letters of Credit: A View of Type Design, page 163
   Tracy also wrote that the italic was too distinctive to combine well with the roman, and that the alternative swash characters made for the italic "prettify the text only at the expense of comforatable reading." 1992, Allan Haley, Typographic Milestones, page 110
   GX provides a mechanism for determining if a glyph is at the start or end of a text line (so swash substitutions could be made dependent on this) while Opentype does not. 2004, George Williams, “Beyond Glyphs, Advanced Typographic Features of Fonts”, in Apostolos Syropoulos, Karl Berry, Yannis Haralambous, editors, TeX, XML, and Digital Typography, page 258
   The grim satisfied smile on the woman's pug face suggests that she is doing this primarily to take revenge upon the absent, so conspiciously absent husband: there is a happy violence in the very swash of her signature. 2017, Joyce Carol Oates, Soul/Mate
   To differentiate between a swash and a flourish, note that swash is a typographical term that refers to the end of a letter that is extended in a curved flourish, and a flourish itself is just a decorative curl in general. 2020, Lisa Quine, Vintage Hand Lettering
7. A streak or patch.
   On impulse he took Sunset through Brentwood and saw Cape Jessamines flaring pink above green lawns and here and there a yellow swash of jonquils. 1972, John Boyd, The I. Q. Merchant, page 21
   Hank stared for a moment at the bloody swash across his hand. 1993, Jo-Ann Morgan, Hank and Chloe
   Additionally, males have an extra swash of red running parallel from the base of the bill to the eye. 2013, Sportsman's Connection, Eastern Pennsylvania All-Outdoors Atlas & Field Guide, page 43
   Spring had painted the land with a swash of verdant splendor, and it was difficult for Jeremy to remain in a foul mood despite the fact he was about to be ousted from his search, and his bed, by Alison Cunningham. 2014, Jill Jones, My Lady Caroline
   To reach the blackberries, he has to cut a path with the sickle through a swash of six-foot flowering nettles that sting his exposed wrists now and again, sweating in the sun's blaze. 2017, Adam Thorpe, Missing Fay
8. (obsolete) Liquid filth; wash; hog mash.
   And it setteth the soul at liberty, and maketh her free to follow the will of God and doth to the soul even as health doth unto the body; after that a man is pined and wasted away with a long soaking disease, the legs cannot bear him, he cannot lift up his hands to help himself, his taste is corrupt, sugar is bitter in his mouth, his stomach abhorreth [meat.] longing after slibbersause and swash, at which a whole stomach is ready to cast his gorge. 1842, William Tyndale, The parable of the Wycked Mammon, page 10
9. (obsolete) A blustering noise.
10. (obsolete) swaggering behaviour.
    Some of you are making a great swash in life and after awhile will die, leaving your families beggars, and will expect us ministers of the Gospel to come and lie about your excellencies; but we will not do it. 1886 September, “Insurance”, in The American Horticulturist: A National Journal of Horticulture, volume 2, number 1, page 27
    He silently cursed the recently arrived Jessup, who was full of more swash than sense . 1993, Robin Leanne Wiete, When Morning Comes, page 32
    Not short on self-assurance, Gulbadeen opened the batting (and bowled at the death) with more swash than buckle. 2020, Lawrence Booth, The Shorter Wisden 2020
11. (obsolete) A swaggering fellow; a swasher.
12. (architecture) An oval figure, whose mouldings are oblique to the axis of the work.
    The lathe was, in process of time, adapted to the production of oval figures, twisted and swash-work, as it is called, and, lastly, of rose-engine work. The swash, or raking mouldings, were employed in the balusters of staircases and other ornaments at the period of the "Renaissance" in architecture, about the end of the sixteenth century, and, therefore, the swash-lathe assumes somewhat of the character of a manufacturing machine. 1856, Lectures on the Progress of Arts and Science, page 230
    The artisans of the Middle Ages were very skilful in the use of the lathe, and turned out much beautiful screen and stall work, still to be seen in our cathedrals, as well as twisted and swash-work for the balusters of staircases and other ornamental purposes. 2019, Samuel Smiles, Industrial Biography: Iron Workers and Tool Makers

verb

1. (transitive, intransitive) To swagger; to act with boldness or bluster (toward).
   He swashed out of the room, and presently we heard his angry voice berating his bearer. 1910, Jerome Klapka Jerome, Robert Barr, Arthur Lawrence, The Idler: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine - Volume 37, page 1327
   He swashed about (cautioned though he was to maintain silence concerning his past theatrical relationships) in such a self-confident manner that he was like to convince every one of his identity by mere matter of circumstantial evidence. 2009, Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie: A Novel, page 310
   The men he'd swashed were coming at him, with determination if no great skill. 2011, Harry Turtledove, An Emperor for the Legion
   "We'll be splendid pirates!" cried Mrs Grinling as she swashed and buckled around the room. 2016, Ronda Armitage, The Lighthouse Keeper: The Lighthouse Keeper's Breakfast
   I turned my back on him and swashed forward. 2019, Mark David Gerson, The MoonQuest
   "In its nature," says Jacques Lacan just a few years after the physical-mathematical techniques had joined forces with cybernetics and then swashed back to France, “the door belongs to the symbolic order, [as] it opens up either on to the real or the imaginary, we don't know quite which … [it is] the symbol par excellence" (Lacan 1988, 302). 2021, Gabriele Dürbeck, Philip Hüpkes, Narratives of Scale in the Anthropocene
2. (transitive, intransitive) To dash or flow noisily; to splash.
   There was an inch or two of water on the floor in our room that continually swashed, swashed from side to side, with the rolling of the ship. 1915, Emma Beatrice Burton, Beatrice Witherspoon, page 59
   Standing at the rail of his caravel on a sultry Caribbean evening as the water jogged and swashed the boat, he smelled the perfume of soil and flowers wafting on a land breeze from the island of Cuba. 2009, Callum Roberts, The Unnatural History of the Sea
   The rain was pelting and rattling upon the leathern top of the carriage, and the wheels swashed as they rolled through puddle and mud. 2014, M. M. Owen, A Sting In The Tale - An Anthology of Twist Endings
   They waved one sleeve, but only swashed wine all over the guests; they waved the other, but only scattered bones through the room. 2014, Sheldon Cashdan, The Witch Must Die: The Hidden Meaning of Fairy Tales
   He swashed it down with coffee royale, feeling his spirits reviving. 2015, Steven Blair Wheeler, Behind Enemy Lines: A Novel of the Battle of the Bulge
3. (transitive, intransitive) To swirl through liquid; to swish.
   The parts are swashed in the solution until they are clean and are then rinsed in cold running water. 1917, The Automobile - Volume 37, page 233
   I followed one set to the laundrey, where for two hours the samples were swashed and soaked, and swashed again, with strong laundry soap. 1920, Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine - Volume 99
   His gray and black hair on his head swashed in the dirty water around what used to be his face. 2008, Francisco Chicado, Mandible Museum, page 76
   First, they should be taken into the mouth, swashed and swirled around in the mouth so as to mix them with your saliva in which the saliva enzymes break down the juice for a much easier consumption. 2012, Sir Leonard, My Dual Fresh Juice and Miracle Weight Losing Plans
   He swashed the dipper around the bucket, keeping his eyes down—and took a slow step sidewise until he cleared the well box and stood behind it. 2014, Ernest Haycox, Man in the Saddle
   His throat worked as he poured the drink down his throat, then he took another mouthful and swashed it around before spitting it out. 2019, Matthew Hughes, A God in Chains
4. (intransitive) To wade forcefully through liquid.
   Kala Nag swashed out of the water, blew his trunk clear, and began another climb; but this time he was not alone, and he had not to make his path. 1894, Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book
   While Col-d'Argent sank collapsed upon the Bridge, and the horse charged over him, and again charged, and beat and were beaten three several times, Anhalt-Dessau, impatient of such fiddling hither and thither, swashed into the stream itself with his Prussian Foot; swashed through it, waist-deep or breast-deep, and might have settled the matter had not his cartridges got wetted. 1899, Thomas Carlyle, History of Fredrich the Second, called Frederick the Great, page 323
   We clambered over the giant ahuehuete like Lilliputians over the body of a Gulliver, and swashed through the slimy flood. 1927, Carleton Beals, Brimstone and Chili, page 137
   The raccoon swashed and swished his way back out of the river's water to interrupt the mouse 2019, Ken Donaldson, Mouses Journey, page 112
   In his wake swashed the others, still covered from both banks. 2021, Arthur Olney Friel, Tiger River
5. (transitive, intransitive) To swipe.
   '[…] ye ill-farren, useless bowdikite!' said she, as she swashed the dishclout about my lugs, 1828, The night watch; or, Tales of the sea - Volume 2, page 97
   It was a fire sword That I swashed about the world, O how I swashed The great fire sword that lit the sky 2010, Dorothea Lasky, Black Life, page 10
   Steady rhythms swash, swash, on my chest Yes, yes. 2015, James Hannah, The A to Z of You and Me, page 191
6. (intransitive) To fall violently or noisily.
7. To streak, to color in a swash.
   As the valleys darkened, the caps of the hills were swashed in variant hues. 2003, Walter Schenck, Shiloh, Unveiled, page 660
   The glade where he stood was tropical in nature and should have been swashed in a hundred shades of green. 2014, Jill Jones, A Scent of Magic
   Great silhouettes overhead swashed the blue satin sky with scimitar wings—Magnificent Frigatebirds! 2019, Nancy Corson Carter, A Green Bough: Poems For Renewal, page 6

adj

1. bold; dramatic.
   Very swash in camelly cashmere belted over shirt-tunic and pants in a neat, tiny print of cinnamon–navy–wine–beige crêpe de Chine; 1970, Vogue - Volume 155, page 40
   When Sir Noel Coward played King Magnus to the Orinthia of Miss Margaret Leighton, the stage was swash with beige draperies, 1972, James L. Steffensen, Great Scenes from the World Theater - Volume 2, page 248
   It seemed like a cool thing, very swash, very buckle. 1997, Tuesday Frase, Melissa Tyler, The Official Guide to Ultima Online, page 70
   I'd only feel stupid. How could that alter anything? It's just like you: big, swash actions. 2010, David Storey, This Sporting Life, page 147
   Should Angel-Feathers plume my Cap, I should Be swash? but oh! my Heart grows Cold. 2014, Edward Taylor, The Poems of Edward Taylor, page 60
2. (typography) Having pronounced swashes.
   The French compositor took the greek capitals for latin ones and sought out his swashest type to set the handwritten letters, 1936, Acta arithmetica - Volume 58, page 217
   The failing to avoid at all costs when using this type of capital is that of making them too swash. 1967, John Le F. Dumpleton, Teach Yourself Handwriting, page 45
   A couple of the swashest Italic capitals have gone over the top 2001, Typography 21: The Annual of the Type Directors Club, page 285