2°d S. VII. June 18. '69.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



503 



a branch or twig. Nor are these the only words 

 in use amongst us, which may properly be traced 

 to the same ultimate original. To sveria or veria, 

 for instance, through Icel. sv'drdr, caespes (Norw. 

 svor; Swed. swarc?; A.'S. sweard, swcethe^ swath, 

 swathu, or siocBthu, a footstep, way, pathy track, 

 row in mown grass ; Germ, schwarte, rind, bark, 

 skin, outside plank or paling), I would refer our 

 word swath or sward, i. e. green-sward ; and it is 

 to be observed that all the terms here mentioned, 

 as being referrible to the old Icelandic word above 

 named, convey, more or less, the idea of encom- 

 passing or wrapping about by close adherence, 

 clasping fast around, confining, limiting, or pro- 

 tecting ; as is again the case with regard to our 

 English swathe, swathel, or swaddle, i. e. swaddling' 

 clothes ; and, I think, it may be shown that even 

 such terms as ward (watch and ward), war (pro- 

 prie defensio), and wear (vestimentum), may be 

 traced to the same ancient root. But this is wan- 

 dering too far away from the real object of this 

 Note. Wm. Matthews. 



Cowgill. 



It is the honourable liability of " N. & Q." to 

 be called upon for the etymology of exactly those 

 words which have the most doubtful origin, and 

 in which lexicographers afibrd the least help. 

 May not some little indulgence be claimed by 

 those who attempt in your pages the solution 

 of such difficulties ? And if, in support of their 

 suggestions, they cannot always bring citations to 

 the point or other direct evidence, ought it not 

 in candour to be borne in mind that it ^is the 

 absence of all such evidence which makes the 

 difficulty that they attempt to solve? This is 

 premised as a general observation. 



Your correspondent inquires respecting two 

 words, swarfing and swarming, both in the sense 

 of climbing. 1. With regard to the v. to swarf e, 

 this is apparently equivalent to the old English 

 v. to swerve, which Dryden uses in the same sense 

 of climbing, as cited by Webster : — 



" Yet nimbly up from bough to bough I swerved." 



Wright also, in his Provincial Dictionary, gives 

 " swarve, to climb." Webster is of opinion that 

 swerve, in the sense of climbing, is from warp, 

 and that " all may spring from the root of veer." 

 Not altogether satisfied with this solution, I would 

 observe that Jamieson seems disposed to regard 

 " swarf e " as merely a Scottish form of " sur- 

 face ; " — " the swarfe of the heart," the surface 

 of the heart. According to this view the expres- 

 sion, he " swarfed up " (climbed up) would simply 

 mean, he " surfaced up." 



2. To swarm, in the sense of climbing, derives 

 very little elucidation from the S. swarmian, or 

 from the Ger. schwdrmen. Webster, of whom it 

 may be truly said that he never blinks a difficulty. 



states that " swarm " is by the common people of 

 New England pronounced squirm, or squurm ; 

 and he thinks that the word is evidently formed 

 from worm, with which certainly agrees our own 

 provincial squirm, as given by Halliwell and 

 Wright, " to wriggle about." Yet, as this solu- 

 tion may not by all be felt satisfactory, I would 

 venture to offer the two following suggestions. 



May not the primary meaning of the two old 

 words, swarmian, schwarmen, be to cling? This 

 would equally apply to the swarming of bees, 

 which cling together and hang in a bunch, and 

 to the swarming up a mast, which is effected, in 

 the proper sense of the verb to swarm, not by the 

 aid of ropes or ratlins, but by clinging with the 

 arms and legs. 



Or must we have recourse to the languages of 

 Southern Europe ? The It. sormontare, in its old 

 and primary meaning, answered to the L. ascen- 

 dere, scandere, to climb. The Fr. word sommer, 

 which now means to sum, to " tottle up," once 

 meant to top, to cap. " Sommer, proprement 

 prins, est mettre comble et sommite a quelque 

 chose " (to top). Can swarm be an abbreviation, 

 in our nautical vernacular, of the Fr. sommer, to 

 top, or of the It. sormontare, to climb ? 



Thomas Boys. 



The English noun " swarm" finds its equi- 

 valent in the Saxon fyeapm, the Dutch swerm, 

 the German schwarm and the Swedish swaerm. 

 For the verb to swarm, the Saxons used svearman, 

 the Dutch use swermen, and the Germans schwdr- 

 men, although these latter use the expression, 

 " Klettern auf einen Baum," for swarming a tree. 

 I think that the same idea may be traced in the 

 expressions, " a swarm of bees," "swarming a mast," 

 and "a swarm of people," i. e. a pressing together 

 as people do in a crowd, and as a man does with 

 his arms and legs when swarming a mast or pole. 

 I cannot exactly explain swarf, but think that it 

 probably was only a corruption of swarm, as at 

 Rugby they term working hard " swotting," a 

 word which I take to be merely a corruption of 

 sweating. J. A. Pn. 



Neither swarm nor swarf is recognised in the 

 nautical dictionary. The former word is never- 

 theless very common, and appears to be cognate 

 with one sense of the German verb schwdrmen, 

 " to swerve about," very characteristic of the ap- 

 pearance of a man raising himself by the strength 

 of his wrists upon a rope or pole, his feet and legs 

 making good his advance upwards. Schwdrmen 

 means also to act as a fanatic or enthusiast, one 

 who swerves from orthodoxy. Swarf, in like 

 manner, is cognate with the Dutch zwerven, to 

 swerve. T. J. Buckton. 



Lichfield. 



