Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'



Swing   Listen
verb
Swing  v. i.  (past & past part. swung, archaic swang; pres. part. swinging)  
1.
To move to and fro, as a body suspended in the air; to wave; to vibrate; to oscillate. "I tried if a pendulum would swing faster, or continue swinging longer, in case of exsuction of the air."
2.
To sway or move from one side or direction to another; as, the door swung open.
3.
To use a swing; as, a boy swings for exercise or pleasure. See Swing, n., 3.
4.
(Naut.) To turn round by action of wind or tide when at anchor; as, a ship swings with the tide.
5.
To be hanged. (Colloq.)
To swing round the circle, to make a complete circuit. (Colloq.) "He had swung round the circle of theories and systems in which his age abounded, without finding relief."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Swing" Quotes from Famous Books



... point of following him, but before he could swing himself over, the beams above gave way and fell, burying the brave son ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the meaning of that move, but the Police team was less responsive to command, and before Rock could swing them he felt his ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... though nearest to the enemy, was least exposed. Partly covered by the bowsprit, he ran nimbly out on that spar till he reached the stay. Here he cut the stop of the fore-topmast halyards, overhauled the running part, and let the block swing in. He then hooked a block that he had carried out with him, and in which the bight of a rope had been rove through the thimble, and ran in as fast as possible. This duty, which had appeared the most hazardous ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... hearth, yet no one talks of closing them. The fact is, that amateur cooking, though a graceful accomplishment, has its penalties, and that at the present moment the smell of broiled bones and fried potatoes that fills our place of learning is something appalling. Why may not it penetrate beneath the swing-door, through the passages, and reach the drawing-room? Such a thing has happened once or twice before. At the bare thought we all quake. I am in the pleasant situation, just at present, of owning a chilled body and a ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... its all-goodness contradicts the moral distinction within the world of experience, between good and evil. The theory is now confronted with the opposite danger, that of materialism, or moral promiscuousness. Let me illustrate this full swing of the pendulum from formalism to materialism by briefly summarizing certain well-known types ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry

... overhear my father and Will Thompson talking about this matter; but I must admit my knowledge is somewhat imperfect, because I never was allowed to ask questions. I remember learning the fact that West had not enough money to swing his option, and so urged his friends to join him. Relying upon West's judgment, they put all their little fortunes into the deal, although Thompson grumbled at doing so, because he claimed he had another investment that was better, and ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne

... upon the only expedients that remained to them. They had land, and they had stock; and, as an escape from absolute ruin, they let the land to tenants who took over the stock and, probably, as the need arose, replaced it with their own beasts. This revolution, already in full swing in the fourteenth century, paved the way for the present order of things, under which the tenant pays a fixed rent for the use of land and buildings, and finds the capital ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... invariably returned to their old haunts when the pressure was over. It looked as though the process might go on indefinitely. I had every opportunity of watching it, for during the first two months of my residence here it was in full swing in the immediate neighbourhood. There were half a dozen Boer strong-holds, or rather trysting-places, quite close to Pretoria and Johannesburg, and the country round was quite useless to us for any purpose but that of marching ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold

... age was, of course, most rapid in Italy, where democracy had first asserted itself. In its train came intellectual ability, and by the middle of the fourteenth century Italy was in the full swing of the intellectual renaissance.[8] In 1341 Petrarch, recognized by all his contemporary countrymen as their leading scholar and poet, was crowned with a laurel wreath on the steps of the Capitol in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... her foot upon the step and drew herself up beside Jarvis. She did not look toward the freight agent. Just as the horses began to swing about, the man upon ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... season was in full swing. In the morning we generally had white mist rising among the trees, while during the day rain was usually plentiful and rendered travelling somewhat monotonous, as we could not see much. We saw ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... up, his black eyes glowing with excitement. He motioned me to keep quiet, but it was quiet superfluous for him to do this, as I was unable to talk, or even look around, for fear the canoe might upset. He seized the harpoon, and with a powerful swing sent it into the water ahead of us, at the same time grasping the line which was attached to the end. The spear sank deep into the water, and then by the vivacity with which it danced around I could tell there was something on ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange

... O'Brien was in the act of turning out the two swing lamps. Already one of them was turned low, and the saloonkeeper, with distended cheeks, was in the act of putting an end to its flickering life when Bill flung open ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... replied—an angry "yes"—and then, with a petulant swing, the instrument apparently left the table and floated upon the air. In deep amazement Morton listened for some movement, some sound from Viola, but there was none, not a breath, not a rustle of motion where she sat, and the silk thread was tight and ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... Mall, St. James's Street, or Piccadilly. He will point out to you the exact spot where he would post himself if the birds were being driven from St. James's Square over the Junior Carlton Club. He will then expatiate learnedly on angle, and swing, and line of flight, and having raised his stick suddenly to his shoulder, by way of an example, will knock off the hat of an inoffensive passer-by. This incident will remind him of an adventure he had while shooting with Lord X.—"A deuced good chap at bottom; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various

... washbowl in it, and a long, sumptuously cushioned locker, which was to do service as a sofa—partly —and partly as a hiding place for our things. Notwithstanding all this furniture, there was still room to turn around in, but not to swing a cat in, at least with entire security to the cat. However, the room was large, for a ship's stateroom, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... quivering lip. "And the money of hers that you've had, and the roof we've provided to shelter ye! It is to me, George Melbury, that you dare to talk like that!" The exclamation was accompanied by a powerful swing from the shoulder, which flung the young man head-long into the road, Fitzpiers fell with a heavy thud upon the stumps of some undergrowth which had been cut during the winter preceding. Darling continued her walk for a few ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... eagerly about among each other, exchanging farewells. The paddle wheels continued their motion, the steam pipe kept up its deafening roar, and the piles of trunks continued to rise into the air and swing over into ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott

... of a desk cluttered with a mass of maps, papers, letters in packets or spread open. There were writing implements here, scientific instruments of all sorts, long sheets of specifications, canceled drafts, pages of accounts—all the manifold impedimenta of a man in the full swing of business life. It might have been the desk of any mediocre man; yet on that desk lay the future of a people and ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... the right, not a moment too soon; a luggage-van bolted into Crown Street; the pedestrians scattered right and left, and the way was clear—no, not quite clear! The engine had to turn at a right angle here into Tottenham Court Road. Round it went on the two off-wheels, and came full swing on a market-gardener and a hot-coffee woman, who were wheeling their respective barrows leisurely side by side, and chatting as ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne

... they had not come together. Ralph charged in with upraised knife; the blow was warded, and he passed on only to swing round on the instant and repeat the attack from the opposite direction. But always Nick faced him, grim, determined, and with deadly purpose. Once the latter slipped; the footing was none too secure. Instantly ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum

... balancez there; and then, after a pirouette and a pas-de-zephyr, pigeon-winged himself right up into the belfry of the House of the Town Council, where the wonder-stricken belfry-man sat smoking in a state of dignity and dismay. But the little chap seized him at once by the nose; gave it a swing and a pull; clapped the big chapeau de-bras upon his head; knocked it down over his eyes and mouth; and then, lifting up the big fiddle, beat him with it so long and so soundly, that what with the belfry-man being so fat, and the fiddle being so hollow, you would have sworn that there was a regiment ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... Town used to swing so gay When glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim, —In the old times, before he threw away his knees. Now he will never feel again how slim Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands, All of them touch him like ...
— Poems • Wilfred Owen

... and helping her into the canoe, he thrust the light craft off, and, with a sturdy stroke of the paddle, drove it out into the Inlet. It was a thing he was used to, for he had painfully driven ruder craft of that kind up wildly-frothing rivers, and the girl noticed the powerful swing of his shoulders and the rhythmic splash of his paddle, though there were other things that had their effect on her—the languid lapping of the brine on shingle, and the gurgle round the canoe, that seemed to be sliding out towards the moonlight through a world of unsubstantial shadow. She ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss

... the kitchen caused Phil to rise hastily and disappear through the swing doors. She returned calmly ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... of matrimony; 'tis a voyage, d'ye see, that was none of my seeking. I was commanded by father, and if you like of it, mayhap I may steer into your harbour. How say you, mistress? The short of the thing is, that if you like me, and I like you, we may chance to swing in ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve

... perspiration fall from my face in torrents, and the strokes of my heart fell audibly on my ear. I even attempted to say, "God preserve me!" but my tongue was dumb and powerless, and could not move. My eye was still upon the coffin, when I perceived that, from being motionless, it instantly began to swing,—first in a lateral, then in a longitudinal direction, although it was perfectly evident that no human hand was nearer it than my own. At length I raised my eyes off it, for my vision was strained to an aching intensity, which I thought must have occasioned my eye-strings to crack. ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... set up my tent under a rock, and lay there for the first night, making it as large as I could with stakes driven in to swing my hammock upon. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... soon as he was gone, Henry spied a swing, which Mr. Fairchild had made in the barn for the children, but which he never allowed them to use when he was not with them, because swings are very dangerous things, unless there are very careful persons to use them. The seat of the swing was tied up to the side of ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood

... out of the Bear's Head, and stopped to look round afore going back to the wharf, when I see a couple o' people standing on the swing-bridge saying 'Good-bye' to each other. One of 'em was a man and ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

... upon the haunting English theme, and to give them connected form. April 1, 1858, he began; and then nearly two weeks passed before he found an opportunity to resume; April 13th being the date of the next passage. By May he gets fully into swing, so that day after day, with but slight breaks, he carries on the story, always increasing in interest for us who read as for him who improvised. Thus it continues until May 19th, by which time he has made a tolerably complete outline, filled in with ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the days conviction bring. 25 The collie hair, the collie swing, The tail's indomitable ring, The eye's unrest— The case was clear; a mongrel thing Kai ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... four men pulled the rope, and Emmett sat in the stern, with the tackle guys in hand. As the current hit us, he let out the guys, which maneuver caused the boat to swing stern downstream. When it pointed obliquely, he made fast the guys again. I saw that this served two purposes: the current struck, slid alongside, and over the stern, which mitigated the danger, and at the same ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey

... very pleasant at grandpa Parlin's at any time. Such a stout swing in the big oil-nut tree! Such a beautiful garden, with a summer-house in it! Such a nice cosy seat in the trees! So many "cubby holes" ...
— Little Prudy • Sophie May

... squirming and ejaculating under the massage treatment of a powerful khaki masseur; doctors, sisters, orderlies, and runners come and go; a triangular duel between three patients on the usual subject—the superior merits of their respective regiments—is in full swing; and the realisation of the foregoing rhyme seems ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross

... check. The sergeant lifted the hatch door between the two control seats and punched on a light to illuminate the stark compartment at the lower front end of the car. A steel grill with a dogged handle on the upper side covered the opening under the hatch cover. Two swing-down bunks were racked up against the walls on either side and the front hull door was without an inside handle. This was the patrol car brig, used for bringing in unwilling violators or other violent or criminal subjects who might crop up in the course of a patrol tour. Satisfied with the ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael

... the ground to the end of the conveyer,—two rods,—the conveyer is swung around about two feet, and the same process gone through, as fast as the ground under the elevator, for the distance of two rods in length and two feet in width gets covered, the elevator being moved. At each swing of the elevator, the peat just spread is cut into blocks (soft ones, however) by knives attached to the elevator. It generally takes from three to four weeks before it is ready for use. It has to lie a week before it is touched, ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson

... angry voice of the negro captain—I heard him stamping with rage, and I thanked God that I was not by his side. The wreck of the mast was soon cleared away; I heard him address his negroes, point out to them that it was better to die like men at the guns, than swing at the yard-arm like dogs. Some of them came down and took on deck a quarter-cask of spirits, which was plentifully supplied ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... Accumulation of troops on the East Prussian frontier and the declaration of the state of war over all important parts of the Russian west frontier allowed no further doubt that the Russian mobilization was in full swing against us, while simultaneously all such measures were denied to our representative in St. ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History

... last. But after he had left she sat motionless, except for an occasional shiver. From the music-stand came a Waldteufel waltz, with its ecstatic throb and its long, dreamy swing, its mingling of joy with foreboding of sadness. The tears streamed down her cheeks. "He's gone," she said miserably. She rose and went through the crowd, stumbling against people, making the homeward journey by instinct alone. ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips

... about the rumblings of earthquakes, and although I never heard any of them, I have felt a shock, and I can imagine the awfulness of the rumbling, and I had a feeling as if the building was about to sway and swing as they do in earthquakes. It wasn't all my imagining, for I saw the people at the other tables near us jump, and two waiters who was hurrying past stopped short as if they had been jerked up by a curb bit. I turned to look at Jone, but he was sitting up straight in his chair, ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton

... oaken door swing open, a murmur of voices in the hall. The next moment Detective-Inspector Manderton entered ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine

... about and got a pole some twenty feet long. This he placed against a rough place high up on the stub and gave it a violent push, watching carefully the head of the stub. Yes! It swayed just a little. Sam repeated the push, careful to keep time with the stub and push always just as it began to swing away from him. The other boys took hold of the pole and all pushed together, as ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... headquarters. A Maxim arrived, as by magic, from somewhere else, the town guard were ordered to their places, and an A.D.C. was sent to the hall, where a little dance for the poor overworked hospital nurses was in full swing, abruptly to break up this pleasant gathering. It only remained for our defenders to wish the Boers would come on, instead of which the attack ended in smoke, after two hours' furious volleying, and by midnight ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... very masterful. The girls envied her a certain queenliness of manner. "We thought," says one of them, "that if we could only come into school in that way, we could know as much Greek as she did." She was accustomed to fill the hood of her cloak with books, swing them over her shoulder, and march away. "We wished," says this lady, "that our mothers would let us have hooded cloaks, that we might carry our ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach

... dear," whispered her aunt. And as Maimie listened, the noble words, borne on the mighty swing of St. Paul's, lifted up by six hundred voices—for men, women, and children were singing with all their hearts—awakened echoes from great deeps within her as yet unsounded. The days for such singing are, alas! long gone. The noble rhythm, the stately movement, the continuous ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... smack very hard at first, for she was resisting the wriggling of the prince; but once she had dug her toes firmly into the sand, she gave her mind to delivering each smack with the full swing of her arm; and the prince began to bellow. Then the baron saw the terrible, treasonable indignity the hope of the house of Lippe-Schweidnitz was enduring. He broke into a curious toddling run, uttering odd, short shrieks of the last ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson

... disconcerted by her volubility of tongue; and, being altogether unfurnished with answers to the distinct periods of her discourse, very wisely chose to save himself the expense of breath and argument, by giving her a full swing of cable, so that she might bring herself up; while he rode onwards, in silent composure, without taking any more notice of his fair fellow-traveller, than if she ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... weather! Ay, and a favouring breeze! Oars upon the feather! Sun of the Southern Seas! Brave boys! Swing together, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various

... those enchanted gates of the Far East which swing open at the palm-girt shores of Ceylon, enters upon a new range of thought and feeling. The first sight of tropical scenery generally awakens a passionate desire for further experiences of the vast ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... you please, Sir Reginald," answered Thornton, grinning, "do as you please. It's not a long walk from hence to Bow-street, nor a long swing from Newgate to the gallows; do as you please, Sir Reginald, do as you please!" and the villain flung himself at full length on the costly ottoman, and eyed Glanville's countenance with an easy and malicious effrontery, which seemed to say, ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... that frequently even the weight of a man leaning against a tree was sufficient to knock it down. I never shall forget how impressed I was the first time I saw my men cut the way through the forest, slashing down right and left good-sized trees with one swing each of their falcon—heavy-bladed knives some 2 ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... and roomy, quite unused except by the children, who kept all their pets and a good deal of what Andrew the gardener called "rubbage" there. At one end the boys had fixed a swing and some rope-ladders, on which they practised all sorts of monkey-like feats. At the other lived David's rabbits in numerous hutches, Ambrose's owl, a jackdaw, a squirrel, and a wonderfully large ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton

... clattered across the narrow bridge, and, with a sudden swing, all came to a sharp stand, amid a cloud of dust ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... and Wayland, in the Library across from the closed door of the Mission. Parlor, black-eyed Indian urchins peeping furtively from the head of the stairs till bells rang lights out. Then silence fell, stabbed by the creak of floor, the swing of door, the click and rustle of the ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... had to refuse with scorn and indignation so much as a box of chocolates from any of her employers. Nevertheless, she continued to be icily on her guard. The clenched fist of her dignity was always drawn back, ready to swing on the first male who dared to step beyond ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... difficult violin works for the piano-forte, but the compositions of Chopin are so essentially born to and of the one instrument that they can not be well suited to any other. The cast of the melody, the matchless beauty and swing of the rhythm, his ingenious treatment of harmony, and the chromatic changes and climaxes through which the motives are developed, make up a new chapter in the ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris

... one little boy, named 'Chris,' a newsboy, aged eleven, who lost his leg by being rode over by a coal cart, about four years ago, whose agility is perfectly wonderful. He throws aside the crutch with disdain, hops across the room with incredible swiftness, seizes the rings of the swing, and flies through the air like a bird. Some of the newsboys have considerable savings, and are very well-conducted lads. Last month, one of them picked up a roll of bills amounting to two hundred dollars. He brought ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... chirped Mose. "All I got to do is fetch him into 'e stretch, swing wide so he got plenty of room to ambulate hisse'f, boot him once in 'e slats, an'—good night an' good-by! Ol 'Lisha jus' tip his to 'em otheh hawsses an' say: ''Scuse me, gen'elmen an' ladies, but I got mos' ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan

... The young man talking to Kirby sat with an amused light in his cool gray eye, surveying critically the half-clothed figures of the puddlers, and the slow swing of their brawny muscles. He was a stranger in the city,—spending a couple of months in the borders of a Slave State, to study the institutions of the South,—a brother-in-law of Kirby's,—Mitchell. He was an amateur gymnast,—hence his anatomical eye; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various

... The exaggerated and dehumanising claims of purely physical and mechanical concepts may for a time obscure the intuition by their specious clarity, but the feelings and the wider consciousness in man reassert themselves. The stars of heaven no longer swing as masses of mere physical atoms in a dead universe, they shine in their own right as members in a living whole. Wordsworth speaks for the forms of life beneath us when ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer

... she swept into view, were black with men; her yards were gay with colour. Uptown some devoted soul was ringing a bell; and turning it away over and over, to judge by the sounds. I pulled up my mules and watched the vessel swing down through the ranks of the shipping and come to anchor. We had beaten out our comrades by ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... resolves seldom lasted over ten minutes, soon fell into the swing of Jerrem's flow of talk; a little later on and Joan was forced to put in a word; so that the usual harmony was just beginning to recover itself when, in answer to a remark which Jerrem had made, Eve managed to turn the laugh so cleverly back upon him ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... strike—one, two, three—four. It was the hour of the night when life is at its lowest, the point on the flaming arc of human existence where it touches the shadow of the unknown, softening into death or brightening into life according to the swing of the pendulum. Then, if ever, the mind and body would be apart, Edith thought, for when the physical forces sink, the spirit must rise to keep the ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... basement dining-room. Mr. Champneys could hear the scraping of chairs, the rattling of dishes, the hum of loud conversation; then the steady clatter of knives and forks, and a dull, subdued murmur. Dinner was in full swing, a dinner of which boiled cabbage must have formed the piece ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler

... beggar man, and play Songs with a splendid swing in them, But I have seen no food to-day. They ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker

... tall, splendid figure, the incarnation of magnificent youth, the forest superman, one upon whom Nature had lavished every gift for the life that he was intended to live. Although his step was light and soundless, his figure expressed strength in every movement. It was shown in the swing of the mighty shoulders, and the long stride which without effort ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... and honorable record, we find Trotzky, at a Conference of Northern Councils of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, on October 25th, when he well knew that arrangements for holding the Constituent Assembly elections were in full swing, charging that Kerensky was engaged in preventing the convocation of the Constituent Assembly! He demanded at that time that all power should be taken from the Provisional Government and transferred to the Soviets. ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... build, wide, shoal, with one broad sail, all painted white, by the custom of the place, and all or nearly all kept neat and clean: they are all likely enough to be called upon now and then for sailing-parties. Often of a bright afternoon in summer the sails will all be up, as the boats swing at their floats: then you have all the effect of a regatta in ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin

... open to let the cool night wind blow in. Vandeloup sat on the verandah with McIntosh smoking cigarettes and listening to Madame, who was playing Mendelssohn's 'In a Gondola', that dreamy melody full of the swing and rhythmic movement of the waves. Then to please old Archie she played 'Auld Lang Syne'—that tender caressing air which is one of the most pathetic and heart-stirring melodies in the world. Archie leaned forward with bowed ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume

... we like it in the gun-room, and got off a fresh cask or two this morning, while the court was sitting. So they tell me, sir, his lordship has put his name to it, and that this Frenchman is to swing from our ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... the growling voices hummed steady amongst bursts of laughter and hoarse calls. "Here, sonny, take that bunk!... Don't you do it!... What's your last ship?... I know her.... Three years ago, in Puget Sound.... This here berth leaks, I tell you!... Come on; give us a chance to swing that chest!... Did you bring a bottle, any of you shore toffs?... Give us a bit of 'baccy.... I know her; her skipper drank himself to death.... He was a dandy boy!... Liked his lotion inside, he did!... No!... Hold your row, you chaps!... I tell you, you ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... the yard of the hotel at Martigny, on the return of the family from their mountain excursion. Other vehicles were there, much company being on the road, from the patched Italian Vettura—like the body of a swing from an English fair put upon a wooden tray on wheels, and having another wooden tray without wheels put atop of it—to the trim English carriage. But there was another adornment of the hotel which Mr Dorrit had not bargained for. Two ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... current and blast, were only kept from colliding with the boat by the artillerymen, who, with the rammers and sponges of the guns, thrust them back, while the bowsmen in the tractive boats had much ado to keep a space clear for the oars to swing. To make the stress the greater, before a fifty yards had been compassed the air was filled with snow, sweeping now one way and now another, quite shutting out all sight of the shores, and making the rushing current of the black, sullen ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... lead another swing and loosed it with so good an aim that it fell twenty yards away right in the swift current rushing through the opening in ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... The sound was the one thing needful to set our mind and tongues free to talk of him. So potent had been his atmosphere that, to be honest, we had been unable to apply judgment to his case. When we gathered at dinner the discussion was in full and amiable swing. ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... million of them, they seem to be determined to rule the remaining faction of sixty millions with worse than a rod of iron, even proving insolent and defiant to the last degree. Sitting supreme in our national Congress and walking with a swing of conscious triumph up and down our legislative halls, monarchs of all they survey, succeeding in every effort made to muzzle ministers, bribe lawmakers, control officers and business men of our country, and place the nation in great peril. The traffic is an intolerable burden to the state, a ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various

... Sulpius, and two thirds of the people of Antioch were out on their house-tops comforting themselves with the night breeze when it blew, and with fans when it failed, Simonides sat in the chair which had come to be a part of him, and from the terrace looked down over the river, and his ships a-swing at their moorings. The wall at his back cast its shadow broadly over the water to the opposite shore. Above him the endless tramp upon the bridge went on. Esther was holding a plate for him containing his ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... pedal (the one at the left) in an upright piano causes the hammers to move up nearer the strings, and the shorter swing thus afforded causes a less violent blow and consequently a softer tone. In the grand piano this same pedal shifts the mechanism to one side so that the hammers strike only one or two of the strings, this resulting in a softer ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens

... wing, and the churchyard wall formed, so to speak, a horseshoe, inclosing a small ornamental garden, at the open side of which was seen a pond, with a small footbridge and a tied-up boat. Close by was a swing, with its crossboard hanging from two ropes at either end, and its frame posts beginning to lean to one side. Between the pond and the circular bed stood a clump of giant plane trees, half ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... last our grating keels outslide, Our good boats forward swing; And while we ride the land-locked tide, Our negroes row ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)

... readily appreciate the varying degrees of elasticity found not only in different sticks but often in the same piece of wood. Strength to work with precision in such hard wood. And for this kind of work the strength required is not that of the carpenter who can use the weight and swing of his body; it is, rather, a self-contained strength in which opposing forces must co-operate in order to ensure the absolute accuracy so indispensable in a bow. Then the sight must be of unerring judgment, for nearly all the work depends on the ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George

... school-boy in his swing; or, as he climbs the tallest tree of the forest, that he may look down upon his less adventurous comrades with a flush of exultation,—and abroad over the fields, the meadows, and his ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... the procession of the Blessed Sacrament on the festival of Corpus Christi, thinking it might do some good. He had several repositories built in a field adjoining our house, these he decorated in the best style possible and managed to have a canopy and boys to swing censors and others to throw flowers before the Blessed Sacrament. When the time for the procession arrived we saw our Reverend Father bearing Jesus Christ in his hands and walking under the dais borne by four religious ...
— Memoir • Fr. Vincent de Paul

... together, setting the reel firmly in its socket, and then deftly fitted on the spoon-hook with its fine wire "snell." Sile's father was an enthusiastic fisherman and had given his son more than a little good schooling. Up went the rod, and the line swing lightly back for a second, and then, with a perfect cast, the brilliant "spoon" flew over the water and alighted among the swift ripples. The current caught it and whirled it away, the polished silver glittering and dancing near the surface, but it was visible only for an instant. There came a rush ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard

... door, wha should I hear but the maister cryin' at the heid o' the stair,—'What, i' the name o' a' that's holy,' says he, 'is the meanin' o' this?' An' I ran til him, oot o' the passage, an' through the swing-door, into the great corridor; an' says I,—''Deed, sir, I was won'erin'! an' wi' yer leave, sir, I'll gang an' see,' I said, gaitherin' my shawl aboot me as weel as I could to hide what was 'aneth ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... gone through a few streets it stopped before a big building; Hawkes got out, told the cabman where to take Peg, paid him, and with some final admonitions to Peg, disappeared through the swing-doors of ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners

... told the Secretary he could not pardon him without a favourable report from the judge; besides, he was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue, and deserved hanging for some thing else; and so he shall swing. What, I must stand up for the honour of the fair sex! 'Tis true the fellow had lain with her a hundred times before, but what care I for that! What, must a woman be ravished because she is a whore?—The Secretary and I go ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... strength, and then leapt out upon the arch of waters. They struck him and he was dashed out like a stone from a sling; again he fell against them and again was dashed away, so that his girdle burst. Eric felt it go and clung wildly to the rope and lo! with the inward swing, he fell on Wolf's Fang, where never a man has stood before and never a man shall stand again. Eric lay a little while on the rock till his breath came back to him, and he listened to the roar of the waters. Then, rising on his hands and knees, he crept to its ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard

... His wife would be absolutely at his mercy. And the thought flashed through my mind that perhaps in some way he had learned of the existence of the letters, and was trying desperately to get them. That thought was enough to swing the balance ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... the street, whistling gaily and imitating the jaunty swing of the milkman. Then I took the first side street, and went up a left-hand turning which led past a bit of vacant ground. There was no one in the little street, so I dropped the milk-cans inside the hoarding and sent the cap and overall after them. I had only just put on my cloth cap when ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan

... Alpine summits bearing an ascertainedly peaked or pyramidal form. He might not be less so if I were to number the very few occasions on which I have seen a true precipice of any considerable height. I mean by a true precipice, one by which a plumb-line will swing clear, or without touching the face of it, if suspended from a point a foot or two beyond the brow. Not only are perfect precipices of this kind very rare, but even imperfect precipices, which often produce upon the eye as majestic an impression as if they were vertical, are nearly always curiously ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... MOTHER AND SISTER,—This is a good week for me. I stopped in the Herald office as I came through New York, to see the boys on the staff, and young James Gordon Bennett asked me to write twice a week, impersonally, for the Herald, and said if I would I might have full swing, and (write) about anybody and everybody I wanted to. I said I must have the very fullest possible swing, and he said "all right." I said "It's a contract—" ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... rough wheels of the sakiehs, turned by buffaloes, oxen, camels, or asses, raised the water to higher levels. Sometimes, even, two robust fellahs, perfectly naked, tawny and shining like Florentine bronzes, standing on the edge of a canal and balancing like a swing a basket of waterproof esparto suspended from two ropes of which they held the ends, skimmed the surface of the water and dashed it into the neighbouring field with amazing dexterity. Fellahs in short blue tunics were ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier

... it in English, and, as the creature quieted down, made another cut. Again came the bucking and throaty protest; and this time, to Jim's dismay, he saw in the bestial faces of the animal-men around them a sympathetic swing of emotional protest. A little more, now; and Clee would be able to take the disk out; but would the slaves ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... her fingers on his sleeve, the light swing of her form at his side, the subtle fragrance that emanated from her hair and face, this intimate nearness on the dark road, the heavy scent of flowers in the bordering fields,—all sent the blood thumping from his heart. If he—if he were in Ed Sorenson's ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... they increased Bobbles' score and standing with the judges, increased Jaynes' temper; and finally he gave a vicious right swing, which Bobbles avoided unintentionally by slipping and falling. So he found himself on the floor, with Jaynes standing over him in expectant anticipation of landing him another ebonizing blow. He heard, also, the referee beginning ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes

... completely destroyed two entire city squares and part of a third, and its course was manifestly just begun. To the north and west it had strayed as far as it was to go, for the north wind made it impossible for it to spread farther in that direction, and its westward swing, as has just been seen, had been checked. The unrestrained main line of the conflagration was therefore almost due south, following the direction of the wind's impulsion, but also it tended toward the east, since all great fires strive, fanlike, to open out. This tendency ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... only four pairs of ski between the five of them. To slog along on foot, in soft snow, in the middle of four men pulling rhythmically on ski, must have been tiring and even painful; and Birdie's legs were very short. No steady swing for him, and little chance of getting his mind off the job in hand. Scott could never have meant to take on five men when he told his supporting team to leave their ski behind, only four ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... the nation. Cheers and waving handkerchiefs and laughing girls sped the troops on their way. It cannot be denied that the most popular song of the war time was "There'll be a hot time in the old town to-night," though it may be believed that the energy and swing of the music rather than the words made it so. The atmosphere of the country was one of a great national picnic where each one was expected to carry his own lunch. There was apparent none of the concentration of effort ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish

... well enough himself what it was all about; for he was signalling his little friends; and every circle of his big arm, and every shake of his long gray beard, and every swing of his old tarpaulin hat, seemed to sing out, "Hurrah, hurrah, for a jolly day! hurrah, hurrah, my children gay! hurrah, hurrah, let's up and away, upon the bright ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes

... troubled eyes, and rose. The purring of the engine was heard. Lynn would be coming in. They watched the young man swing his car out into the road and glide away like a comet with a wild sophisticated snort of his engine that sent him so far away in a flash. They watched the girl standing where he had left her, a stricken look upon her face, and saw her turn slowly back ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... have time to shoot Smith. That ship of yours is a goner, you know. It'll be a jolly sight pleasanter for you to be a prisoner of war than to be dangling about on the end of a rope in this beastly wind. And Donovan would have seen to it that you did swing if you'd shot Smith. There's nobody so vindictive as your humanitarian pacifist, ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham

... offer what comfort I could to its fair occupants. I asked leave to enter. Mrs Tarleton's voice assured me that I was welcome. I found both ladies sitting on a sofa which I had lashed close to the table. A swing lamp hung from above. They had books before them, and were attempting to read. I doubt if they had made much progress. I told them that I thought the gale was breaking, and that we might have fair weather ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... vestment, was truly a lad "dressed up to cozen" any lover who preferred his friend and his bottle to his mistress. Merry as a sand-boy she danced about in russet boots that came to the knee; lithe and lissome in the full swing of immunity from skirts, ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... This swing, though, to absolute monarchy, complete with the installation of the Kyle Dynasty—damn him! This is something which psychologists, not historians, must explain. Has the age of the Common Man, so bravely flaunted for over one hundred years, truly ...
— With a Vengeance • J. B. Woodley

... drunk; throw them into the water to sober them; set fire to their towers on all four sides, even if the dead Florian himself should rise from his grave to beg for them. But if you catch the master alive, swing him up on the cross bar over the well. Now off with you! I'll go too; saddle my horse. Where's that miserable priest? What the devil does he want? ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai

... shall go to head quarters, where, my word for it, you'll swing without much ceremony. The committee will never take the trouble to try you again, and Townsend declares that he wishes only to come once more ...
— Whig Against Tory - The Military Adventures of a Shoemaker, A Tale Of The Revolution • Unknown

... all but harmless along Amyas' bow; a long dull grind, and then loud crack on crack, as the Rose sawed slowly through the bank of oars from stem to stern, hurling the wretched slaves in heaps upon each other; and ere her mate on the other side could swing round, to strike him in his new position, Amyas' whole broadside, great and small, had been poured into her at pistol-shot, answered by a yell which rent their ears ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... is in full swing, there occurs a series of letters written by one of the heroes from Palestine. The enthusiasm of the author for the Holy Land cannot deny itself, and this unexpected Zionist note, in a purely modern work, reveals his soul as it really is, the ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz

... sits through five acts of piffle that was mostly talky junk to me. And, at that, I wa'n't sufferin' exactly; for when them actorines got too weird, all I had to do was swing a bit in my seat and I had a side view of a spiffy little white fur boa, with a pink ear-tip showin' under a ripple of corn-colored hair, and a—well, I had ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... you?" she cried. The tears dribbled down her face. She saw the balance turning on a hair. A moment more and it might swing back. She turned and hobbled swiftly to the shelf. Proof! More proof! She must bring ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... where parts of the white house appeared above the tree-tops. Here the dragoman talked with the captain of artillery, a tiny man on an immense horse, who for some unknown reason told him that this force was going to raid into Turkey and try to swing around the opposing army's right flank. He announced, as he showed his teeth in a smile, that it would be very, very dangerous work. The ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... picked up the carbine which had fallen from her hand. There was one cartridge still in the breech. Replacing his revolver in its holster he rose above the rocks, ready to swing the rifle to his shoulder. Up where the outlaws lay, a man was standing in the trail. He was making no effort to conceal himself, and did not see Philip until he was within fifty paces of him. Even then he did not show surprise. ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood

... of birds and beasts in infinite variety, as also of those creatures which seem neither bird nor beast. There are large black howling monkeys, and little black-faced ones with prehensile tails, by means of which they swing in mid-air or jump from tree to tree in sheer lightness of heart. There is also the sloth, which, as its name implies, is painfully deliberate in its motions. Were I a Scotchman I should say that ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray



Words linked to "Swing" :   square dance, baseball swing, droop, swing around, vacillate, hang, swing shift, action, country-dance, waver, change, take, contra danse, fornicate, live, dangle, hook, influence, oscillate, aim, approach, go, swing door, swinger, vibrate, shank, fade, contredanse, approach shot, slicing, swing over, sway, manage, explosion, country dancing, music, get around, travel, activeness, draw, move back and forth, play, motion, be, handle, jive, fluctuate, lash, downswing, drive, act upon, work, putt, golf stroke, displace, teeoff, swinging, swingy, sweep, trapeze, locomote, square dancing, vacillation, weave, swing about, cut, wield, take aim, activity, drop, putting, King of Swing, contradance, slice, swing music, stroke, jazz, move, toy, blow, shot, sclaff, hooking, plaything, driving, golf shot, in full swing, train, swing out, mechanical device, wind up, socialize, socialise, movement, direct



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org