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Sway   /sweɪ/   Listen
noun
Sway  n.  
1.
The act of swaying; a swaying motion; the swing or sweep of a weapon. "With huge two-handed sway brandished aloft."
2.
Influence, weight, or authority that inclines to one side; as, the sway of desires.
3.
Preponderance; turn or cast of balance. "Expert When to advance, or stand, or turn the sway Of battle."
4.
Rule; dominion; control. "When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, The post of honor is a private station."
5.
A switch or rod used by thatchers to bind their work. (Prov. Eng.)
Synonyms: Rule; dominion; power; empire; control; influence; direction; preponderance; ascendency.


verb
Sway  v. t.  (past & past part. swayed; pres. part. swaying)  
1.
To move or wield with the hand; to swing; to wield; as, to sway the scepter. "As sparkles from the anvil rise, When heavy hammers on the wedge are swayed."
2.
To influence or direct by power and authority; by persuasion, or by moral force; to rule; to govern; to guide. "The will of man is by his reason swayed." "She could not sway her house." "This was the race To sway the world, and land and sea subdue."
3.
To cause to incline or swing to one side, or backward and forward; to bias; to turn; to bend; warp; as, reeds swayed by wind; judgment swayed by passion. "As bowls run true by being made On purpose false, and to be swayed." "Let not temporal and little advantages sway you against a more durable interest."
4.
(Naut.) To hoist; as, to sway up the yards.
Synonyms: To bias; rule; govern; direct; influence; swing; move; wave; wield.


Sway  v. i.  
1.
To be drawn to one side by weight or influence; to lean; to incline. "The balance sways on our part."
2.
To move or swing from side to side; or backward and forward.
3.
To have weight or influence. "The example of sundry churches... doth sway much."
4.
To bear sway; to rule; to govern. "Hadst thou swayed as kings should do."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Sway" Quotes from Famous Books



... the master mind that reads The far-off issues of the day, And with a willing nation pleads That loves to own a master sway? Where are the landmarks on the way, Set up alone by him who leads? We vainly ask a common creed To make ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... consciousness. Their motives are at once both simple and direct, and they are doubtless sincere. Much misunderstanding has arisen by judging such primitive people by the standards of our present day civilization. Sex worship, while it held sway was probably quite as seriously entertained as many other beliefs; it only became degraded during a decadent age, when civilization had advanced beyond such simple conceptions of a deity, but had not evolved a ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... and house we must some day, For human sway not long doth bide; Leave pleasures and festivities, And pedigrees, our ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... China and India. Enfolded and imprisoned within the overpowering vastness and illimitable sweep of nature, man is almost unconscious of his freedom and his personality. He surrenders himself to the disposal of a mysterious "fate" and yields readily to the despotic sway of superhuman powers. The State is consequently the reign of a single despotic will. The laws of the Medes and Persians are unalterable. But in Greece we have extended border-lands on the coast of navigable seas; ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... hog-wash! are you selling hog-wash In a pretty bottle with a nice pneumatic spray? Nevermore in perfume shall a useless little dog wash; In my heart and boudoir precious piggy's holding sway. Oh, indeed, it's worse than silly If a person now admires An inedible young filly, Dams and sires, Smooths and wires; For in gilts and in boars And in suckers and in stores Proper keenness one acquires Now ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various


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