swingeing
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈswɪnd͡ʒɪŋ/
ipa: /ˈswɪnd͡ʒɪŋ/
Forms: form: more swingeing
form: most swingeing
Etymology: From swinge + -ing. Swinge is derived from Middle English swengen (“to strike”), from Old English swengan (“to dash, strike; to cause to swing”).
Senses: examples: text: And when Occaſion did require, / In midſt of Houſe a mighty Fire, / Of black dry'd Earth and ſwingeing Blocks / Was made, enough to roaſt an Ox; […]
ref: 1716, W[illiam] M[offat], Hesperi-neso-graphia: Or, A Description of the Western Isle. In Eight Canto’s, 4th edition, London: Printed and sold by J. Baker, at the Black-Boy in Pater-Noster-Row, →OCLC, canto II, page 7:
text: "Let him pursue his own course," said Diggs, taking up a pen, and making some hasty memoranda on a sheet of paper. "We shall have swingeing damages—swingeing damages."
ref: 1855, William Harrison Ainsworth, “Abel’s Interview with the Miser—Unexpected Appearance of Randulph and Cordwell Firebras—Result of the Meeting”, in The Miser’s Daughter: A Tale, London; New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] Routledge & Co., Farringdon Street; New York, 18, Beekman Street, →OCLC, page 123:
text: A shock for passengers by the Dover-Dunkerque "Night Ferry" is the swingeing increases in berth rates for those who are not travelling in the sleeping cars.
ref: 1962 December, “Beyond the Channel: European timetables: The winter train services”, in Modern Railways, page 413:
text: Every day produces more evidence that this hard Tory Brexit is a disaster in the making. Carmakers and other export manufacturers, fearing swingeing tariffs, are demanding special protections and exemptions or else they leave.
ref: 2017 March 27, “The Observer view on triggering article 50: As Britain hurtles towards the precipice, truth and democracy are in short supply”, in The Observer, London, archived from the original on 17 May 2017:
text: After petrol rationing ended in 1952, the BTC was aware that more swingeing cuts had to be made, and a sinister message was conveyed by the loss of the meandering 38-mile route from Blisworth to Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1952, and the 25-mile Abergavenny-Merthyr Heads of the Valleys line in January 1958.
ref: 2023 March 8, Howard Johnston, “Was Marples the real railway wrecker?”, in RAIL, number 978, page 51:
synonyms: word: whopping
word: ample
word: big
word: bodacious
word: broad
word: commodious
word: considerable
word: expansive
word: good-sized
word: full
word: generous
word: giant
word: grand
word: great
word: hefty
word: hench
word: immense
word: jumbo
word: larger than life
word: largifical
word: leviathan
word: long
word: massive
word: mega-
word: overlarge
word: outsized
word: oversize
word: oversized
word: prodigious
word: roomy
word: rotund
word: sizeable
word: spacious
word: stonking
word: tall
word: vast
word: voluminous
word: wide
word: astronomic
word: behemothic
word: big fat
word: boxcar
word: Brobdingnagian
word: bulky
word: colossal
word: cyclopean
word: Daniel Lambertish
word: elephantine
word: elephantic
word: enormous
word: gargantuan
word: giantesque
word: gigantesque
word: gigantic
word: ginormous
word: great big
word: honkin'
word: huge
word: hulking
word: humongous
word: hunormous
word: immane
word: mahoosive
word: mammoth
word: mastodonic
word: monstrous
word: monumental
word: mountainous
word: pantagruelian
word: pyramidal
word: Pythonic
word: stupendous
word: super-
word: supersized
word: titanic
word: tremendous
word: whopping
word: yuge
glosses: Huge, immense.
examples: text: a swingeing verbal attack
text: Steven's cold blood was now heated, and springing from the ground, he rushed forward utterly regardless of science, and with his head down, protected by his bended arm, he closed with a swingeing right-handed hit that unfortunately caught Ned upon the ear, and sent him reeling, and for the instant half stunned, upon one side.
ref: 1869, Samuel W[hite] Baker, chapter IV, in Cast Up by the Sea, London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, pages 80–81:
text: With the publication of Drunk Man [A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926)] [Hugh] MacDiarmid revealed that he had developed from an accomplished and sometimes brilliant miniaturist into a major poet. The poem represents the high-water mark of his work in Scots and probably of his writing as a whole. Maturity of utterance and sophistication of expression combine in a swingeing, energetic exploration of his situation which he never surpassed.
ref: 1987, John Baglow, “Uncouth Dilemmas”, in Hugh MacDiarmid: The Poetry of Self, Kingston, Ont.; Montreal, Que.: McGill-Queen's University Press, →ISBN, page 64:
text: Perhaps not since the felling of America's vast forests in the 19th century, […] has the world seen such a spectacular environmental change. The consequences for Arctic ecosystems will be swingeing.
ref: 2012 June 16, James Astill, “Special Report: The Melting North”, in The Economist, archived from the original on 20 Jan 2017, page 4:
text: Switzerland, a bastion of neutrality through two world wars, has decided to adopt wholesale swingeing EU sanctions against the Russian central bank, freezing as much as billions of dollars in assets and massively increasing the pressure on the Russian economy.
ref: 2022 February 28, Patrick Wintour, the Guardian, Guardian Media Group, retrieved 28 Feb 2022:
glosses: Heavy, powerful, scathing.
Derived terms: swingeingly
Related terms: word: swinge
english: one who swinges; anything very large, forcible, or astonishing
translation: one who swinges; anything very large, forcible, or astonishing
word: swinger