swathe

«swathe» in Mova's school dictionary: a long, wide strip or area of land, crops or something else — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a swathe, swathes); verb (swathe, swathes, swathed, swathing)

meaning for a pupil

1) A swathe is a long, wide strip or area of land, crops or something else. tree →

2) To swathe something is to wrap it up in cloth or bandages. tree →

3) A swathe can be a large part of a group: «a swathe of the country». tree →

sense in the lessons

In nature and geography writing, «a swathe of forest» means a big strip of it. When grass or corn is cut with a scythe, each cut row is a swathe. «Cut a swathe through» means to move through and knock things down. In stories a hurt person is «swathed in bandages» or a baby «swathed in blankets».

examples

• The fire burned a wide swathe of forest. tree →
• The baby was swathed in a warm blanket. tree →
• His arm was swathed in bandages. tree →
• The farmer cut the hay in long swathes. tree →
• A swathe of bluebells covered the wood. tree →
• Snow fell across a huge swathe of Canada. tree →

note

Also spelt «swath» (especially in the US) for the strip meaning. Rhymes with «bathe». Regular verb: swathed.

In the corpora

• Sleep takes him «as a swathe of barley is folded into the arms of the reaping machine».

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «swathe» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.