Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
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First published 1974 (SND Vol. IX). Includes material from the 2005 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
Quotation dates: 1813-1835, 1918-1998
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SWAW, n., v. Also swa(a). Also variant, perhaps metri causa, swow. [swɑ:]
I. n. A wave, an undulation on the surface of water, a ripple (Sc. 1825 Jam.). Now chiefly liter.Sc. 1829 Scots Mag. (May) 92:
Wi' swash an' swow, the angry jow Cam' lashan' doun the braes.Slk. 1918 Border Mag. (Jan.) 14:
A flick of their tails, which sent ever-widening “swaas” to the edges of the still pool.Sc. 1926 H. M'Diarmid Drunk Man 32:
A swaw like a flaw in a jewel.Sc. 1947 New Shetlander No. 1. 8:
This sang the swaws o' Fate can niver droun.ne.Sc. 1950 Scots Mag. (April) 58:
The peerie swaws are eident, vreetin picturs on the san.ne.Sc. 1979 Alastair Mackie in Joy Hendry Chapman 23-4 (1985) 64:
and smoored syne in the gypit sweel o the swaws. Sc. 1979 Maurice Lindsay Collected Poems 42:
Doun on the shore, the lick and lap o swaws tongues on glitty stanes em.Sc. 1988 James Robertson in Joy Hendry Chapman 52 70:
An sae they sat, luikin out on the swaws, an ahint them the twa brigs, an the muckle black ile-tankers that soomed back an forrit i the jow o the sea, ... Fif. 1998 Tom Hubbard Isolde's Luve-Daith 3:
Oor luve wis swaw on swaw o the gloamin sea,
II. v. tr. and intr. Of a river: to form waves, to ripple, roll, undulate; to cause a motion or ripple on the surface of water (Sc. 1825 Jam.); to move in this manner, to glide.Slk. 1813 Hogg Poems (1874) 33:
Where the river swa'd a living stream.Slk. a.1835 Hogg Poems (1874) 374:
When the day-sky bursts frae the main, She swaws wi' the dew to heaven again.
