swad

plural swads · alternative swod

1. A bunch, clump, mass

   "[…]Ye'd oughta see th' swad a' chil'ren I've got, an' all like that."

   1895 October, Stephen Crane, chapter X, in The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 102

   Synonyms: bunch, clump, mass

2. obsoleteslangA crowd; a group of people.
3. obsoleteA boor, lout.

   Country swains, and silly swads.

   1588, Robert Greene, Perimedes

   2 more examples

   Sham’st thou not coistrel, loathsome dunghill swad.

   1591, unknown author, The Troublesome Reign of King John, scene 2

   There was one busy fellow was their leader, / A blunt, squat swad, but lower than yourself.

   1633 (first performance), Ben Jonson, “A Tale of a Tub. A Comedy […]”, in The Works of Beniamin Jonson, […] (Third Folio), London: […] Thomas Hodgkin, for H[enry] Herringman, E. Brewster, T. Bassett, R[ichard] Chiswell, M. Wotton, G. Conyers, published 1692, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)

4. businessA thin layer of refuse at the bottom of a seam.
5. NorthernUKdialectalobsoleteA cod, or pod, as of beans or peas.

   ... it is the stem and leaf that is wanted , more than the swad or grain.

   1840, John French Burke, British Husbandry: Exhibiting the Farming Practice in Various Parts of the United Kingdom ..., page 19

   4 more examples

   They must bee gathered in the decrease of the moone, presently vpon their being ripe, for else they drie vp and fall out of their swads:

   1600, Charles Estienne, Maison Rustique, Or The Covntrie Farme, page 695

   ... the Bean is not seen till first it be unhusk'd, and that its swad or hull be shaled, and pilled from off it : […]

   1653, François Rabelais, The Works of Mr. Francis Rabelais, Doctor in Physick: Containing Five Books of the Lives, Heroick Deeds, and Sayings of Gargantua, and His Sonne Pantagruel, Together with the Pantagrueline Prognostication, the Oracle of the Divine Bacbuc, and Response of the Bottle. Hereunto are Annexed the Navigations Unto the Sounding Isle, and the Isle of the Apedefts: as Likewise the Philosophical Cream with a Limosin Epistle All Done by Mr. Francis Rabelais, in the French Tongue, and Now Faithfully Translated Into English ...1653, page 390

   Swad, in the north, is a peascod shell — thence used for an empty, shallow-headed fellow.

   1656, Thomas Blount, Glossographia

   It is a fruit growing on a tree, a species of acacia. "The pods hang down, and only the swad is used for feeding cattle." Why , then , does the Chancellor of the Exchequer tax locust beans as a kind of wheat? Have his Park-lane friends warned him against manna?

   1902, The Speaker, page 100