SWERVING • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Swerving

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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 'Swerving'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Swerving" Quotes from Famous Books

... it surmounted at 40 miles an hour, dashing down the inclines at the speed of an express train, and swerving time after time ...

— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... the mountain ponies, herding together until sickness or accident breaks the ranks, when the hapless sufferer, deserted by his kind, falls an easy prey to the wild dogs of the Tengger ranges. A heap of bleaching bones points to some past tragedy, and terrifies the swerving horses of the native pilgrims. The ascent of the Bromo is negotiated from the eastern side to the lip of the gigantic crater. Slanting precipices of lava, their grey flanks scored with black gullies ...

— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... is a pretty jolly vow of thirteen to a dozen. It is a shame to you, and I wonder much at it, that you do not return unto yourself, and recall your senses from this their wild swerving and straying abroad to that rest and stillness which becomes a virtuous man. This whimsical conceit of yours brings me to the remembrance of a solemn promise made by the shag-haired Argives, who, having ...

— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... symbolizes duty. It seems to have the quality of inexorableness that duty has. When I have something to do that must not be set aside, I feel as if I were going forward in a straight line, bound to arrive somewhere, or go on forever without swerving to the right ...

— The World I Live In • Helen Keller

... trade; and the Railroads which should regain or replace it are postponed from year to year, and may never be completed, or at least not until it is utterly too late. Weeds gather around the marble steps of her palaces; her towers are all swerving from their original uprightness, and there is neither energy nor means to arrest their fall. Nobody builds a new edifice within her precincts, and the old ones, though of the most enduring materials and construction, cannot eternally resist the relentless ...

— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

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