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Sweep

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King James Dictionary
• Sweeping
• Sweep
Vines' Expository Dictionary
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Webster Dictionary
• Sweepings
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•   (only first 3 shown)
Lexicons
• ܚܰܡ
• σαρόω
• בָּעַר בָּעַר, , בָּעַר
• גָּרַף
• גָּרַר
•   (only first 3 shown)

SWEEP, pret. and pp. swept.

1. To brush or rub over with a brush, broom or besom, for removing loose dirt to clean by brushing as, to sweep a chimney or a floor. When we say, to sweep a room, we mean, to sweep the floor of the room and to sweep the house, is to sweep the floors of the house.

2. To carry with a long swinging or dragging motion to carry with pomp.

And like a peacock, sweep along his tail.

3. To drive or carry along or off by a long brushing stroke or force, or by flowing on the earth. Thus the wind sweeps the snow from the tops of the hills a river sweeps away a dam, timber or rubbish a flood sweeps away a bridge or a house. Hence,

4. To drive, destroy or carry off many at a stroke, or with celerity and violence as, a pestilence sweeps off multitudes in a few days. The conflagration swept away whole streets of houses.

I have already swept the stakes.

5. To rub over.

Their long descending train,

With rubies edg'd and sapphires, swept the plain.

6. To strike with a long stroke.

Wake into voice each silent string,

And sweep the sounding lyre.

7. To draw or drag over as, to sweep the bottom of a river with a net, or with the bight of a rope, to hook an anchor.

SWEEP, To pass with swiftness and violence, as something broad or brushing the surface of any thing as a sweeping rain a sweeping flood. A fowl that flies near the surface of land or water, is said to sweep along near the surface.

1. To pass over or brush along with celerity and force as, the wind sweeps along the plain.

2. To pass with pomp as, a person sweeps along with a trail.

She sweeps it through the court with troops of ladies.

3. To move with a long reach as a sweeping stroke.

SWEEP, n. The act of sweeping.

1. The compass of a stroke as a long sweep.

2. The compass of any turning body or motion as the sweep of a door.

3. The compass of any thing flowing or brushing as, the flood carried away every thing within its sweep.

4. Violent and general destruction as the sweep of an epidemic disease.

5. Direction of any motion not rectilinear as the sweep of a compass.

6. The mold of a ship when she begins to compass in, at the rung heads also, any part of a ship shaped by the segment of a circle as a floor-sweep a back-sweep, &c.

7. Among refiners of metals, the almost-furnace.

8. Among seamen, a large oar, used to assist the rudder in turning a ship in a calm, or to increase her velocity in a chase, &c.

Sweep of the tiller, a circular frame on which the tiller traverses in large ships.