Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To burn.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adverb obsolete Instantly; quickly; speedily; rapidly.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb Alternative form of swith.
  • adverb instantly, quickly, speedily, rapidly, strongly

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English swithe, swythe, from Old English swīþe ("very much, exceedingly, severely, violently, fiercely, especially, exceedingly"), from Proto-Germanic *swinþaz, *swenþaz (“strong”), from Proto-Indo-European *swent- (“active, healthy”). More at swith.

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Examples

  • Whan that drad maladye of rickrollyng, delivered to us by Our Lord and Savior as portente of His Hooly Judgment, strykes with terrible corage, leaping from flyckereng Devilbox to Devilbox across the miasma in the cweer disgyse of Richard of Astley, Galen adviseth couching a deed polcat upon the cheste of the rickrolld ful swithe to balance the overly sangwyn humors caused by daemonic, forbidden styles of dance.

    Miles Klee: Doctors Tackle The Rickrolling Pandemic 2009

  • And he yede and opened the tomb, and there flew out an adder right hideous to see; the which as swithe flew about the city and the country, and soon after the city sank down.

    The Travels of Sir John Mandeville 2004

  • (_bude_); _swithe_, very; _wician_, to dwell; _cirr_, an occasion;

    Early Britain Anglo-Saxon Britain Grant Allen 1873

  • He sæde theah thæt thæt land | though, that that land was sie swithe lang north thonan; | [or extended] much north ac hit is eall weste, buton on | thence; eke it is all waste, feawum stowum styccemælum | but [except that] on few stows wiciath Finnas, on huntothe | [in a few places] piecemeal on wintra, and on sumera on | dwelleth Finns, on hunting on fiscathe be thære sæ.

    Early Britain Anglo-Saxon Britain Grant Allen 1873

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