swack
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /swæk/
rhymes: -æk
Forms: form: swacks
form: swacking
form: swacked
form: swacked
Etymology: Considered dialect by Wright, but now widespread. Scottish National Dictionary proposes an origin in Old Scots (Middle English) swak ("to throw violently"). Compare Scots swak, swack (“to throw with violent force, dash", also "a hard blow or whack”). Compare also Middle Dutch swacken (“to shake, wave”).
Senses: examples: text: When Oscar charged the tyrant Loth, Their spears both in flinders flew; Syne swacked they swords in deidly wroth, But a churl behind King Oscar slew!
ref: 1885, James Lumsden, Rural Rhymes and Sketches in East Lothian, page 88:
text: The tide was swacking its heart out on the snarls of rocks that intermittently crocheted the coast line.
ref: 1946, Lucy Rountree Kuykendall, P.S. to Pecos, page 45:
text: Now Baker has been chided quite a bit for his method of treatment for the seeming barbarity of strapping the patients down and swacking them out.
ref: 1969, Richard E. Hicks, Paul Jay Fink, Van Buren O. Hammett, Psychedelic Drugs, page 47:
text: The buyers then carry them home, swinging the rope and shouting, "Bettara! Bettara!" to warn people to step aside or risk having their holiday clothes swacked with the sticky pickles.
ref: 1988, Visitor, page 27:
text: Your brother's no hero," Nick told him, shaking plaster snow from his own dark hair and swacking it off his faded denim shirt and jeans.
ref: 1995, Suzanne Forster, Come Midnight, page 118:
text: I wondered if I should tell the truth, always a dangerous tactic with women, as they usually retaliated by swacking you over the head with an even more devastating truth about yourself .
ref: 2001, Willard Manus, Mott the Hoople, page 44:
text: My father gleefully took this as a challenge to his tennis skill, unpacked his racquet, and swacked every flying mammal within reach.
ref: 2005, Gilda Cordero-Fernando, The Last Full Moon: Lessons on My Life:
text: With his next move he swacked his ball passed the wicket and was on his way to the next one.
ref: 2010, James D. Heintz, Apple Box Boy: Slices of Life, page 169:
glosses: To smack.
To slap or hit.
examples: text: "Rose" looked upon him with unfriendly eye, as his swacking bill-hook would be likely to affright her game.
ref: 1885, Henry Mills Alden, Frederick Lewis Allen, Lee Foster Hartman, Harper's - Volume 70, page 73:
text: The windshield wipers were swacking rapidly back and forth in a hopeless attempt to clear away the sheets of water.
ref: 1983, Julia Howard, A Lasting Image, page 154:
text: Ho has a very peculiar way of swacking his lips, and frequently talks of a mutton chop, and how he likes it cooked .
ref: 1985, Hugh Shimmin, Liverpool Life ; The Courts and Alleys of Liverpool, page 106:
glosses: To smack.
To make a swack (sound).
examples: text: At any rate, motoring is not even as you were ”before the war, but a good deal further behind in many respects, buoyed up only by the enthusiasm of released automobilists and neomotorists swacking their fill of new post-war delights.
ref: 1919, Sketch: A Journal of Art and Actuality - Volume 107, page 30:
text: The “swacking" of beer, without more, has no direct probative bearing upon any factual issue in this case.
ref: 1969, The Pacific Reporter, page 652:
text: By Five o'clock I was back in my room, swacking down Mike's Jack Daniel's with Mike and Harvey.
ref: 1979, Roger Lichtenberg Simon, Peking Duck: A Moses Wine Detective Novel, page 117:
glosses: To consume with hearty enjoyment.
examples: text: Morgan was out of sight as usual, swacking away in the engine room.
ref: 1937, Sidney Corbett, The Cruise of the Gull-Flight, page 133:
text: Becky was a slow reader, patiently swacking her way through every line.
ref: 2003, Elana Nachman/Dykewomon, Moon Creek Road: Collected Stories, page 72:
glosses: To labour; to exert an effort.
Derived terms: swack up