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Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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About this entry:
First published 1974 (SND Vol. IX). Includes material from the 2005 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

SWAW, n., v. Also swa(a). [swɑ:]

I. n. A wave, an undulation on the surface of water, a ripple (Sc. 1825 Jam.). Now chiefly liter.Slk. 1918 Border Mag. (Jan.) 14:
A flick of their tails, which sent ever-widening “swaas” to the edges of the still pool.Sc. 1926 H. M'Diarmid Drunk Man 32:
A swaw like a flaw in a jewel.Sc. 1947 New Shetlander No. 1. 8:
This sang the swaws o' Fate can niver droun.ne.Sc. 1950 Scots Mag. (April) 58:
The peerie swaws are eident, vreetin picturs on the san.ne.Sc. 1979 Alastair Mackie in Joy Hendry Chapman 23-4 (1985) 64:
and smoored syne in the gypit sweel o the swaws. Sc. 1979 Maurice Lindsay Collected Poems 42:
Doun on the shore, the lick and lap o swaws tongues on glitty stanes em.Sc. 1988 James Robertson in Joy Hendry Chapman 52 70:
An sae they sat, luikin out on the swaws, an ahint them the twa brigs, an the muckle black ile-tankers that soomed back an forrit i the jow o the sea, ... Fif. 1998 Tom Hubbard Isolde's Luve-Daith 3:
Oor luve wis swaw on swaw o the gloamin sea,

II. v. tr. and intr. Of a river: to form waves, to ripple, roll, undulate; to cause a motion or ripple on the surface of water (Sc. 1825 Jam.); to move in this manner, to glide.Slk. 1813 Hogg Poems (1874) 33:
Where the river swa'd a living stream.Slk. a.1835 Hogg Poems (1874) 374:
When the day-sky bursts frae the main, She swaws wi' the dew to heaven again.