SWERVE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Swerve

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/swərv/ Listen

verb

Swerve v. t. To turn aside.

Swerve v. i. (past & past part. swerved; pres. part. swerving)

To stray; to wander; to rope. (Obs.) "A maid thitherward did run, To catch her sparrow which from her did swerve."

To go out of a straight line; to deflect. "The point (of the sword) swerved."

To wander from any line prescribed, or from a rule or duty; to depart from what is established by law, duty, custom, or the like; to deviate. "I swerve not from thy commandments." "They swerve from the strict letter of the law." "Many who, through the contagion of evil example, swerve exceedingly from the rules of their holy religion."

To bend; to incline. "The battle swerved."

To climb or move upward by winding or turning. "The tree was high; Yet nimbly up from bough to bough I swerved."

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Etymology of 'Swerve'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Swerve" Quotes from Famous Books

... and rider had come to the wide irrigating ditch which, since Judith Sanford had lived here, had been constructed to carry the water of Blue Lake River down to the alfalfa-fields. She saw it when she was too close to swerve. ...

— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory

... proeveth it is so, And hath do many day er this, Thurgh venym which that medled is In holy cherche of erthly thing: For Crist himself makth knowleching 860 That noman may togedre serve God and the world, bot if he swerve Froward that on and stonde unstable; And Cristes word may noght be fable. The thing so open is at ije, It nedeth noght to specefie Or speke oght more in this matiere; Bot in this wise a man mai lere Hou that the world is gon aboute, The which welnyh is wered oute, ...

— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower

... communicate all his designs to them in the most unreserved manner. This resolution, had he adhered to it, would have averted many years of blood and mourning. But "in very few days," says Clarendon, "he did fatally swerve from it." ...

— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... roar of cannon and doleful shrieks. Above our batteries the whole atmosphere was inflamed; and to complete the calamity, I missed the way, and got lost in the darkness. Finally, in descending the hill, my horse, frightened, made a terrible swerve or side-jump. I did not know the cause; but after having, with difficulty, got him into the road again, I found myself opposite to a deserter who had been hanged that day! I was horribly disgusted by the sight; the gallows being very low, and the head of the malefactor almost parallel ...

— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... disguise of promoters of peace and industry, a revolution of the disaffected among ourselves would be attempted. Many were the dissuasions resorted to for the purpose of checking the zeal of the committee, and causing the court to swerve from its patronage of so bold a measure! The court, the government, the committee, and the leading men in the mercantile interests of the metropolis and the provinces, pursued the even tenor of their way, amused at the folly of so many persons in a condition of life to know better. These fears ...

— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

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