Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One that sweeps.
  • noun A carpet sweeper.
  • noun Sports A lone defender who plays between the last line of defenders and the goalie in some defensive configurations in soccer.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who or that which removes the scale of protoxid of iron from any plate or beam or other piece of steel or iron undergoing the process of rolling in the rolling-mill.
  • noun One who or that which sweeps; a sweeping-machine.
  • noun A tree growing on the margin of a stream, and overhanging the water at a sharp angle from the bank. It sometimes forms an excellent fishing-place.

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

  • noun One who, or that which, sweeps, or cleans by sweeping; a sweep.

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

  • noun One who sweeps floors or chimneys
  • noun A detector (for mines)
  • noun A small, tropical marine perciform fish of the family Pempheridae, typically with deeply keeled, compressed bodies and large eyes.
  • noun soccer A defender who is the last line of defence before the goalkeeper
  • noun curling A person who sweeps the ice ahead of the rock in play.
  • noun cricket A batsman who plays sweep shots
  • noun cricket A fielding position along the boundary; a fielder in this position
  • noun A tree that has fallen over a river with branches extending into the water.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun little-known nocturnal fish of warm shallow seas with an oblong compressed body
  • noun a cleaning implement with revolving brushes that pick up dirt as the implement is pushed over a carpet
  • noun an employee who sweeps (floors or streets etc.)

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • This political season the money vacuum sweeper is working as hard as ever – pulling in cash for the conventions, the candidates, and the parties from the pockets of Democratic and Republican faithful.

    Creative Money Chasing - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com 2008

  • This political season the money vacuum sweeper is working as hard as ever – pulling in cash for the conventions, the candidates, and the parties from the pockets of Democratic and Republican faithful.

    Creative Money Chasing - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com 2008

  • Here the chimney sweeper is all alone, in a snowstorm — the snow already stained with the pollution from burning coal — perhaps homeless, covered head to foot in coal-soot; indeed, to enhance the effect of the image, it appears that Blake may have used some sort of coal mixture for his water-coloring, for the only real color in the plate is a rusty coal-oil brown.

    Blake's Contraries Game 2005

  • We’ve gone through several vacuums in the years that we’ve had our animals and have found that the best sweeper is one that has a bag.

    Five Ways To Keep Pet Hair Off Your Clothes | myFiveBest 2010

  • There is nothing about the private lives of the judges, and of the staff, down to the lowest sweeper, that is not to him incidental knowledge.

    'In Other Rooms, Other Wonders' 2009

  • To call a sweeper and have me led away by one of these lizard-men?

    Soldiers Three Rudyard Kipling 1900

  • Caroline was observing with a 27-inch focal length Newtonian 'sweeper'.

    Caroline Herschel Bente Lilja Bye 2008

  • I had a dream long ago about a "sweeper" who to me was such a model of domestic peace.

    January Organizing and Housecleaning Linda 2008

  • “Mothballed: Bomb 'sweeper' that could save our troops' lives scrapped due to lack of equipment”

    Archive 2009-08-01 Thatsnews 2009

  • “Mothballed: Bomb 'sweeper' that could save our troops' lives scrapped due to lack of equipment”

    Monday morning report in which Harriet Harman goes mad. Twice. Thatsnews 2009

Comments

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  • It's a fish.

    January 2, 2012