Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A swishing action or sound; a swish.
  • noun Slops; a wishy-washy beverage.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • And, in five minutes time, the six of them were out on the sea, Julian taking one oar, and Dick the other, "Swish-swash - swish-swash" went the oars, and the boat rocked as it sped along.

    Five Have A Mystery To Solve Blyton, Enid, 1898?-1968 1962

  • There is a kind of swish-swash made also in Essex, and divers other places, with honeycombs and water, which the homely country wives, putting some pepper and a little other spice among, call mead, very good in mine opinion for such as love to be loose bodied at large, or a little eased of the cough.

    Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) Thomas Malory Jean Froissart

  • There is a kind of swish-swash made also in Essex, and divers other places, with honeycombhs and water, which the homely country wives, putting some pepper and a little other spice among, call mead, very good in mine opinion for such as love to be loose bodied at large, or a little eased of the cough.

    Of the Food and Diet of the English. Chapter VI. [1577, Book III., Chapter 1; 1587, Book II., Chapter 6 1909

  • All was still, save for the crickets 'ceaseless chirp, the soft thud of an August sweeting dropping in the grass, and the swish-swash of the water against his boat, tethered in the Willow Cove.

    Homespun Tales Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin 1889

  • But he still attempted to go on, and still the instrument of torture went swish-swash round his little thin legs, raising upon them, no doubt, plentiful blue wales, to be revealed, when he was undressed for the night, to the indignant eyes of pitying mother or aunt, who would yet send him back to the school the next morning without fail.

    Alec Forbes of Howglen George MacDonald 1864

  • England, and a delicate sort of drink in Wales, called metheglin; but there was a kind of "swish-swash" made in Essex from honey-combs and water, called mead, which differed from the metheglin as chalk from cheese.

    Complete Essays Charles Dudley Warner 1864

  • England, and a delicate sort of drink in Wales, called metheglin; but there was a kind of "swish-swash" made in Essex from honey-combs and water, called mead, which differed from the metheglin as chalk from cheese.

    For Whom Shakespeare Wrote Charles Dudley Warner 1864

  • England, and a delicate sort of drink in Wales, called metheglin; but there was a kind of "swish-swash" made in Essex from honey-combs and water, called mead, which differed from the metheglin as chalk from cheese.

    The Complete Project Gutenberg Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Charles Dudley Warner 1864

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