Word Finder - swift

definition

A small plain-colored bird of the family Apodidae that resembles a swallow and is noted for its rapid flight.

synonyms

• needletail
• spinetail
• swiftlet

definition

Any of certain lizards of the genus Sceloporus.

synonyms

• fence lizard

definition

A moth of the family Hepialidae, swift moth, ghost moth.

definition

Any of various fast-flying hesperiid butterflies.

definition

A reel for winding yarn.

definition

The main cylinder of a carding-machine.

definition

The current of a stream.

definition

Fast; quick; rapid.

definition

Capable of moving at high speeds.

definition

Swiftly.

Her answer came swift and certain.

Her answer came swift and positive.

The hare they had started was a strong and swift one.

The words were swift and emotional and she had no doubt he spoke the truth.

He held his head higher, his eyes shone with the light of life, and with swift steps he followed the maid, overtook her, and came out on the Povarskoy.

She went up to him and with a swift, flexible, youthful movement dropped on her knees.

The streams are swift and clear, and numerous small waterfalls are characteristic of the district.

In its upper course it flows over a rocky bed with a swift current and many rapids.

He was a great admirer of Dean Swift, and took pleasure in sending him presents of game.

Her unusually swift stride outdistanced both of them.

He was swift and clean as a good journeyman.

All are swift and unnavigable, save perhaps for a.

With one swift swipe Nols expertly kills the bullock and tears out its still pulsating heart.

In 1711 he founded the 4 Swift's Inquiry into the Behaviour of the Queen's Last Ministry; Mrs Delaney's Correspondence, 2 ser., iii.

The upward ascent of the column of gases is as swift as the descent of the solid charge is slow.

The increase of railway accommodation has been swift.

They are great leapers and swift runners, mostly frequenting open stony plains.

Of river names the Blackwater, Witham, Ashburne, Swift, Washburn, Loxly, Wythburn, Eamont are perhaps English and so also may be the Waveney in Suffolk.

In 1688 the rich uncle, whose supposed riches had dwindled so much that at his death he was almost insolvent, died, having decayed, it would seem, not less in mind than in body and estate, and Swift sought counsel of his mother at Leicester.

Swift's endeavours after an accommodation were as fruitless as unremitting.

Swift, on the other hand, was devoid of passion.

Swift was afraid of the reception the book would meet with, especially in political circles.

I am, for those few days, yours entirely - Jonathan Swift.

In London he met Swift, who procured him a chaplaincy at Hull.

Darwin Swift (Clarendon Press, 1894), in which are many references to authorities.

The Cypselus esculentus, or edible-nest swift, is very common, and the nests, which are built mostly in limestone caves, are esteemed the best in the archipelago.

The best account of Brook Farm is Lindsay Swift's Brook Farm, Its Members, Scholars and Visitors (New York, 1900).

The rapid exhaustion in late years of the caribou, seals and other animals, once the food or stockin-trade of the Aleuts and other races, threatens more and more the swift depletion of the natives.

But the genius from which it came - the swift faculty of perception, the lofty imagination, the idealizing spirit enamoured of reality - was the secret source of all Emerson's greatness as a speaker and as a writer.

Swift, who was intimate with him, speaks of him as "an arrant knave"; but the dean may have been disappointed at being unmentioned in Rivers's will, for he made a fierce comment on the earl's bequests to his mistresses and his neglect of his friends.

Sinaia resembles a large model village, widely scattered among the pine forests of the lower Carpathians, and along the banks of the Prahova, a swift alpine stream.

His grandfather, Thomas Swift, vicar of Goodrich near Ross, appears to have been a doughty member of the church militant, who lost his possessions by taking the losing side in the Civil War and died in 1658 before the restoration could bring him redress.

After a brief residence with his mother, who was needlessly alarmed at the idea of her son falling a victim to some casual coquette, Swift towards the close of 1689 entered upon an engagement as secretary to Sir William Temple, whose wife (Dorothy Osborne) was distantly related to Mrs Swift.

It was at Moor Park, near Farnham, the residence to which Temple had retired to cultivate apricots after the rapid decline of his influence during the critical period of Charles II.'s reign (1679-1681), that Swift's acquaintance with Esther Johnson, the "Stella" of the famous Journal, was begun.

Swift was twenty-two and Esther eight years old at the time, and a curious friendship sprang up between them.

William remained unconvinced and Swift's vanity received a useful lesson.

A certificate of conduct while under Temple's roof was required by all the Irish bishops he consulted before they would proceed in the matter of his ordination, and after five months' delay, caused by wounded pride, Swift had to kiss the rod and solicit in obsequious terms the favour of a testimonial from his discarded patron.

Forgiveness was easy to a man of Temple's elevation and temperament, and he not only despatched the necessary recommendation but added a personal request which obtained for Swift the small prebend of Kilroot near Belfast (January 1695), where the new incumbent carried on a premature flirtation with a Miss Jane Waring, whom he called "Varina."

Swift's Battle of the Books was written in 1697 expressly to refute this.

Anne was particularly amenable to the influence of priestly and female favourites, and it must be considered a proof of the strong interest made for Swift that she was eventually persuaded to appoint him to the deanery of St Patrick's, Dublin, vacant by the removal of Bishop Sterne to Dromore.

One of his pamphlets against the latter (The Public Spirit of the Whigs set forth in their Generous Encouragement of the Author of the Crisis, 1714) was near involving him in a prosecution, some invectives against the Scottish peers having proved so exasperating to Argyll and others that they repaired to the queen to demand the punishment of the author, of whose identity there could be no doubt, although, like all Swift's writings, except the Proposal for the Extension of Religion, the pamphlet had been published anonymously.

The immediate withdrawal of the offensive passage, and a sham prosecution instituted against the printer, extricated Swift from his danger.

Foreseeing, as is probable, the impending fall of the former, Swift retired to Upper Letcombe, in Berkshire, and there spent some weeks in the strictest seclusion.

The utter exclusion of Whigs as well as Dissenters from office, the remodelling of the army, the imposition of the most rigid restraints on the heir to the throne - such were the measures which, by recommending, Swift tacitly admitted to be necessary to the triumph of his party.

Bolingbroke's daring spirit, however, recoiled from no extreme, and, fortunately for Swift, he added so much of his own to the latter's MS. that the production was first delayed and then, upon the news of Anne's death, immediately suppressed.

When, a few days afterwards, Oxford was in prison and in danger of his life, Swift begged to share his captivity; and it was only on the offer being declined that he finally directed his steps towards Ireland, where he was very ill received.

These four busy years of Swift's London life had not been entirely engrossed by politics.

Varina was avenged by Vanessa, who pursued Swift to far other purpose.

Had the solution of marriage been open Stella would undoubtedly have been Swift's choice.

It was rumoured at the time that Stella was the natural daughter of Temple, and Swift himself at times seems to have been doubtful as to his own paternity.