Chapter Sweet to Sword-makers of S by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Sweet to Sword-makers

Sweet as sugar. (See Similes. )

Sweet Singer of Israel King David (B.C. 1074-1001).

Sweet Singers A puritanical sect in the reign of Charles II., etc., common in Edinburgh. They burnt all storybooks, ballads, romances, etc., denounced all unchaste words and actions, and even the printed Bible.

Sweet Voices Backers, votes. Coriolanus speaks with contempt of the sweet voices of the Roman mob voters.

Sweetheart A lover, male or female.

Swell Mob The better-dressed thieves and pickpockets. A “swell” is a person showily dressed; one who puffs himself out beyond his proper dimensions, like the frog in the fable.

Swi Dynasty The twelfth Imperial dynasty of China, founded by Yang-kien, Prince of Swi, A.D. 587. He assumed the name of Wen-tee (King Wen).

Swift as lightning, as the wind, as an arrow, etc. (See Similes. )

Swim (In the). In society. The upper crust of society. An angler's phrase. A lot of fish gathered together is called a swim, and when an angler can pitch his hook in such a place he is said to be “in a good swim.” To know persons in the swim is to know society folk, who always congregate together.

“Cottontree, who knows nearly everybody in the swim of European society ... informs him that Lucy Annerley is the daughter of Sir Jonas Stevens.”- A.C. Gunter: Mr. Potter of Texas, book iii. chap. xiv.

Swindle To cheat; from the German schwindeln, to totter. It originally meant those artifices employed by a tradesman to prop up his credit when it began to totter, in order to prevent or defer bankruptcy.

Swine Boar or brawn, the sire; sow, the dam; sucklings, the new-born pigs. A castrated boar-pig is called a hog or shot. Young pigs for the butcher are called porkers.
   A sow-pig after her first litter becomes a brood-sow, and her whole stock of pigs cast at a birth is called a litter or farrow of pigs.

Swing (Captain). The name assumed by certain persons who sent threatening letters to those who used threshing machines: (1830-1833.) The tenor of these letters was as follows:- “Sir, if you do not lay by your threshing machine, you will hear from Swing.”

“Excesses of the Luddites and Swing.”- The Times.

Swinge-buckler A roisterer, a rake. The continuation of Stow's Annals tells us that the “blades” of London used to assemble in West Smithfield with sword and buckler, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, on high days and holidays, for mock fights called “bragging” fights. They swashed and swinged their bucklers with much show of fury, “but seldome was any man hurt.” (See Swashbuckler.)

“There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Barnes, and Francis Pickbone, and Will Squele, a Cotswold man; you had not four such swinge-bucklers in all the Inns-of-court; and, I may say to you, we knew where the bona-robas were.”- Shakespeare: 2 Henry IV., iii. 2.

Swiss The nickname of a Swiss is “Colin Tampon” (q.v.).
   No money, no Swiss- i.e. no servant. The Swiss have ever been the mercenaries of Europe- willing to serve anyone for pay. The same was said of the ancient Carians. In the hotels of Paris this notice is common: “Demandez [or Parlez] au Suisse ” (Speak to the porter).

Swiss Boy (The). Music by Moscheles.

Swiss Family Robinson An abridged translation of a German tale by Joachim Heinrich Kampe, tutor to Baron Humboldt.