Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A short, fat person.
  • noun A rude, coarse fellow; a clown; a country bumpkin.
  • noun A soldier. See swaddy.
  • noun A crowd; a squad.
  • noun A lump, mass, or bunch.
  • noun Apod, as of beans or peas. Also swab. [Prov. Eng.]
  • noun In coalmining, sooty or worthless coal.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Prov. Eng. A cod, or pod, as of beans or pease.
  • noun Obs. or Prov. Eng. A clown; a country bumpkin.
  • noun Low, U.S. A lump of mass; also, a crowd.
  • noun (Coal Mining) A thin layer of refuse at the bottom of a seam.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A bunch, clump, mass
  • noun obsolete, slang A crowd; a group of people.
  • noun obsolete A boor, lout.
  • noun mining A thin layer of refuse at the bottom of a seam.
  • noun UK, dialect, obsolete, Northern A cod, or pod, as of beans or peas.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a bunch

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Related to swaddle?

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Examples

  • It is such a simple process to get such good results, right! mara naniji bau swad nankhatai banavta hata, as kids we used to sit in the kitchen & watch her make it. amey oven khulwani vaat jota hata kay kyare nankhatai taste kariye.

    My take on Nankhatai.... Cardamom 2007

  • In the corridor stood the queen awaiting him, and holding close to her bosom a cushion, on which lay a child, beautiful as the moon, kicking in swad dling clothes.

    Sixty Folk-tales from Exclusively Slavonic Sources 1889

  • They made a narrow run with him, head foremost down the hill, with a whole swad of the mounted men from the low country at their heels.

    The Wigwam and the Cabin. By the Author of "The Yemassee," "Guy Rivers," &c. First Series 1845

  • "Stop Ki," says I, "when the street is all finished off and slicked up, they'll all come back agin, and a whole raft more on 'em too, you'll sell twice as much as ever you did; you'll put off a proper swad of goods next year, you may depend;" and so he did, he made money, hand over hand.

    The Clockmaker Thomas Chandler Haliburton 1830

  • Stop Ki, says I, when the street is all finished off and slicked up, they'll all come back agin, and a whole raft more on 'em too, you'll sell twice as much as ever you did, you'll put off a proper swad of goods next year, you may depend; and so he did, he made money, hand over hand.

    The Clockmaker — or, the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville Thomas Chandler Haliburton 1830

  • The old wife said that, as the bean is not seen till first it be unhusked, and that its swad or hull be shelled and peeled from off it, so is it that my virtue and transcendent worth will never come by the mouth of fame to be blazed abroad proportionable to the height, extent, and measure of the excellency thereof, until preallably I get a wife and make the full half of a married couple.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • The old wife said that, as the bean is not seen till first it be unhusked, and that its swad or hull be shelled and peeled from off it, so is it that my virtue and transcendent worth will never come by the mouth of fame to be blazed abroad proportionable to the height, extent, and measure of the excellency thereof, until preallably I get a wife and make the full half of a married couple.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • a batch, a swad, a gang, a crush of crows, oh, definitely a large crowd of crows …

    Birdology Sy Montgomery 2010

  • Ohio is most the only country I knew of where folks are saved that trouble; and there the freshets come jist in the nick of time for 'em, and sweep all the crops right up in a heap for 'em, and they have nothin to do but take it home and house it, and sometimes a man gets more than his own crop, and finds a proper swad of it all ready piled up, only a little wet or so; but all countries aint like Ohio.

    The Clockmaker — or, the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville Thomas Chandler Haliburton 1830

  • The old wife said that, as the bean is not seen till first it be unhusked, and that its swad or hull be shelled and peeled from off it, so is it that my virtue and transcendent worth will never come by the mouth of fame to be blazed abroad proportionable to the height, extent, and measure of the excellency thereof, until preallably I get a wife and make the full half of a married couple.

    Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 3 Fran��ois Rabelais 1518

Comments

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  • JM advocates "Swads of the world - UNITE!"

    February 16, 2011

  • Siliqua, a cod, a pease-swad, used metaphorically for one who is slender; a mere swad. --A Provincial Glossary, 1787.

    May 5, 2011

  • Oh! Looks like it's a term from coal-mining, too.

    May 5, 2011

  • So, you wouldn't be able to call a wodge swad, then? No such thing as a swad wodge?

    May 5, 2011