Dictionary Thesaurus Word Dynamo Quotes Reference Translator Spanish

sweep

verb (used with object)

to move or remove (dust, dirt, etc.) with or as if with a broom, brush, or the like.

to clear or clean (a floor, room, chimney, etc.) of dirt, litter, or the like, by means of a broom or brush.

to drive or carry by some steady force, as of a wind or wave: The wind swept the snow into drifts.

to pass or draw (something) over a surface with a continuous stroke or movement: The painter swept a brush over his canvas.

to make (a path, opening, etc.) by clearing a space with or as if with a broom.

EXPAND

to clear (a surface, place, etc.) of something on or in it (often followed by of): to sweep a sea of enemy ships.

to pass over (a surface, region, etc.) with a steady, driving movement or unimpeded course, as winds, floods, etc.: sandstorms sweeping the plains.

to search (an area or building) thoroughly: Soldiers swept the town, looking for deserters.

to pass the gaze, eyes, etc., over (a region, area, etc.): His eyes swept the countryside.

10.

to direct (the eyes, gaze, etc.) over a region, surface, or the like: He swept his eyes over the countryside.

11.

to examine electronically, as to search for a hidden listening device.

12.

to win a complete or overwhelming victory in (a contest): Johnson swept the presidential election of 1964.

13.

to win (every game, round, hand, etc., of a series of contests): The Yankees swept the three-game series.

14.

Music.

to pass the fingers or bow over (a musical instrument, its strings or keys, etc.), as in playing.

to bring forth (music) thus.

COLLAPSE

The North Face Sale www.mountaingear.com The Big Sale at Mountain Gear. Up to 70% Off, Buy Now!

verb (used without object)

15.

to sweep a floor, room, etc., with or as if with a broom: The new broom sweeps well.

16.

to move steadily and strongly or swiftly (usually followed by along, down, by, into, etc.).

17.

to move or pass in a swift but stately manner: Proudly, she swept from the room.

18.

to move, pass, or extend in a continuous course, especially a wide curve or circuit: His glance swept around the room.

19.

to conduct an underwater search by towing a drag under the surface of the water.

EXPAND

20.

Aeronautics. (of an airfoil or its leading or trailing edge) to project from the fuselage at an angle rearward or forward of a line perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the aircraft.

COLLAPSE

:10

:09

:08

:07

:06

:05

:04

:03

:02

:01

Sweep is always a great word to know.

So is triad. Does it mean:

chord of three tones, one consisting of a given tone with its major or minor third augmented

tone on the third degree from a given tone counted as the first

LEARN MORE UNUSUAL WORDS WITH WORD DYNAMO...

noun

21.

the act of sweeping, especially a moving, removing, clearing, etc., by or as if by the use of a broom: to give the house a good sweep.

22.

the steady, driving motion or swift onward course of something moving with force or without interruption: the sweep of the wind and the waves.

23.

an examination by electronic detection devices of a room or building to determine the presence of hidden listening devices.

24.

a swinging or curving movement or stroke, as of the arm, a weapon, an oar, etc.

25.

reach, range, or compass, as of something sweeping about: the sweep of a road about a marsh.

EXPAND

26.

a continuous extent or stretch: a broad sweep of sand.

27.

a curving, especially widely or gently curving, line, form, part, or mass.

28.

matter removed or gathered by sweeping.

29.

Also called well sweep. a leverlike device for raising or lowering a bucket in a well.

30.

a large oar used in small vessels, sometimes to assist the rudder or to propel the craft.

31.

an overwhelming victory in a contest.

32.

a winning of all the games, rounds, hands, prizes, etc., in a contest by one contestant.

33.

Football. end run.

34.

one of the sails of a windmill.

35.

Agriculture. any of the detachable triangular blades on a cultivator.

36.

Chiefly British. a person employed to clean by sweeping, especially a chimney sweeper.

37.

Cards.

Whist. the winning of all the tricks in a hand. Compare slam² (def. 1).

Casino. a pairing or combining, and hence taking, of all the cards on the board.

38.

Physics. an irreversible process tending towards thermal equilibrium.

COLLAPSE

Origin:
1250–1300; Middle English swepen (v.); compare Old English geswēpa sweepings, derivative of swāpan to sweep (> obsolete English swope); cognate with German schweifen

Related forms

sweep·a·ble, adjective

un·sweep·a·ble, adjective

Example Sentences

Beijing is in the midst of a major corruption sweep ahead of a leadership change expected next year.

Do not sweep away those small operating-budget savings, because doing so only encourages everyone to spend down to zero.

Even at art fairs democracy is hard to sweep under the carpet.

EXPAND

Beijing is in the midst of a major corruption sweep ahead of a leadership change expected next year.

Do not sweep away those small operating-budget savings, because doing so only encourages everyone to spend down to zero.

Even at art fairs democracy is hard to sweep under the carpet.

With the brushes, researchers will be able to sweep trenches in miniature computer chips or clean mirrors used in nano-motors.

One day a highly contagious and lethal strain of influenza will sweep across all humanity, claiming millions of lives.

Through billowing smoke, the lights sweep the stage.

Stout branches with upward sweep usual more add to my plant list.

They're born spinning quickly, up to tens of times per second, and sweep the sky with a beam of radio energy as they rotate.

But don't expect text-mining to sweep the humanities overnight.

Or maybe their beams are pointing in the wrong directions to sweep over the earth.

They also face frigid blasts called katabatic winds that sweep from the interior highlands to the sea.

Tens of thousands sweep ahead with a suicidal single-mindedness.

Most people are way too eager to sweep up their fallen leaves.

With two of these networked together, scoring the amount of dust you can sweep in, you'd have a great game on your hands.

Hopefully a backlash against tenure will not sweep away reasonable forms of job security and academic freedom.

The laptop was supposed to sweep through poor countries, scattering knowledge and connectivity all around.

The photographer used the sweep of the dune to frame the plant and applied the rule of thirds in composing the landscape.

Earth, sweep sweep ours problems around the sun, and give us good new years ahead.

We sweep nearly everyday, so these are new dead bees.

Updwelling is fueled by northerly winds that sweep out near-shore waters and bring cold water to the surface.

Or dismissive hand waving designed to sweep these deep questions under the rug.

The romantic in every reader yearns for a new order to sweep aside the impediments of the old.

Sweep your carpet with a broom to lift the fibers and remove loose dirt.

The further back or up from the shoreline, the clearer the larger, smoother sweep becomes.

We used the larger scale of the aeonium to define the edges and to create a visual sweep of the eye across the garden.

In the distance, flashlight beams sweep the roadway.

The first half of the book almost has the sweep of a novel.

Corals can persist in surprisingly murky water as long as tides and currents periodically sweep the sediments off.

The land, heated to an excess under the equatorial sun, gives rise to warm currents of the air that sweep north.

Notice how the photographer used the sweep of the vineyard in the foreground to take our eyes to the town.

Evolution is the rug scientists sweep things under when they don't understand something.

Storms bury the summit, then high winds sweep the snow away.

Wind and ocean currents sweep up this garbage and deposit it in this slow-moving gyre.

Within the fortnight, a screaming three-day blizzard would sweep the canyon country.

Soon the monsoon would sweep in, dousing the flames, but not me.

Sweep driveways and patios clean instead of hosing them down.

The last major sweep resulted in many guilty pleas, but relatively few long prison terms.

Beautiful during the spring, the area really comes alive in the winter when migrating waterfowl sweep into the area.

Sweep your someone away with chocolate, flowers, and a romantic getaway.

To display their new-found sense of fraternity, businessmen have helped sweep the streets.

Floods sweep through one state while wildfires rage in another.

Lasers sweep the surroundings and when they detect a.

When it rains hard, landslides sweep topsoil down to the sea.

But there was no hint that he was about to sweep away the ancien régime.

Just sweep the problems under the homeland security rug and, with luck, nobody on the outside will be the wiser.

His speciality is the bold sweep of narrative history, marshalling hard facts and telling anecdotes to support big judgments.

Notice how the photographer used the sweep of the vineyard in the.

As you pronounce the word you sweep out all possible triplets of short and long beats'.

On-board cameras sweep the area to pick up the background scenery and display that infra-red signature on the vehicle.

The photographer used the sweep of the dune to frame the plant and.

But there's an obvious problem: nothing is simpler than a sweep of blue sky, or the inky blackness of space.

It would also be wrong to sit back and hope that globalisation, left to itself, will somehow sweep them up in due course.

But concerned observers say the vast sweep and the density of this latest one.

If someone is speaking to you through the window, move the screen and it will sweep across the caller's room.

Lucky foreigners, it is said, who can render the connotations-and sweep away the inauthentic air of archaism.

Sweep up as much of the baking soda as possible before vacuuming.

Then electric fields generated by the solar wind sweep away the charged particles.

Soldiers often clear every room of every building they sweep.

Capturing the sheer joy of being in the sweep of time is no easy task.

The biggest issue, he said, was addressing the vehicle's wing sweep.

The gentle sweep of the dune bisects the frame and the energy of the plant is reinforced by its stalks thrusting skyward.

The manufacturers also dismiss any acoustical/noise emission problems, or attempt to sweep them under the table as minimal.

The gentle sweep of the dune bisects the frame and the energy of the plant is.

It is intellectually dishonest to ignore the full sweep and influence of the home birth movement.

Experts fear the disease will mutate into a form that can leap between humans and sweep populations with no immunity.

Desperate for its life, with the sweep of a mighty forepaw the ear seized one of the dogs by the neck and crushed it to death.

It's a misconception that fires sweep over an area uniformly, burning everything to the ground.

Then they open their cavernous maws to let the currents sweep food straight in.

It was spine chilling to see how landlord families were made to climb up chimneys and sweep the streets.

Then, with one wide sweep of my ax, the bamboo falls.

But the agents withdrew after a sweep of the nearby forest turned up a lone suspect.

Other groups carry brooms, or twigs to sweep out their tracks.

They are fragments of dreams in a garage near a small white frame house with a neighboring red barn in the sweep of the plains.

COLLAPSE

Dictionary.com Unabridged

noun Slang.

a sweepstakes.

Also, sweeps.

Origin:
by shortening

Link To sweep

Collins

World English Dictionary

sweep (swiːp)

—vb (often foll by away) , sweeps, sweeping, swept
1.	to clean or clear (a space, chimney, etc) with a brush, broom, etc
2.	(often foll by up) to remove or collect (dirt, rubbish, etc) with a brush, broom, etc
3.	to move in a smooth or continuous manner, esp quickly or forcibly: cars swept along the road
4.	to move in a proud or dignified fashion: she swept past
5.	to spread or pass rapidly across, through, or along (a region, area, etc): the news swept through the town
6.	(tr) to direct (the gaze, line of fire, etc) over; survey
7.	(tr; foll by away or off) to overwhelm emotionally: she was swept away by his charm
8.	(tr) to brush or lightly touch (a surface, etc): the dress swept along the ground
9.	to convey, clear, or abolish, esp with strong or continuous movements: the sea swept the sandcastle away; secondary modern schools were swept away
10.	(intr) to extend gracefully or majestically, esp in a wide circle: the plains sweep down to the sea
11.	to search (a body of water) for mines, etc, by dragging
12.	to search (a room, area, etc) electronically to detect spying devices
13.	(tr) to win overwhelmingly, esp in an election: Labour swept the country
14.	cricket to play (a ball) with a sweep
15.	(tr) to propel (a boat) with sweeps
16.	sweep something under the carpet to conceal (something, esp a problem) in the hope that it will be overlooked by others
17.	sweep the board
	a. (in gambling) to win all the cards or money
	b. to win every event or prize in a contest

—n
18.	the act or an instance of sweeping; removal by or as if by a brush or broom
19.	a swift or steady movement, esp in an arc: with a sweep of his arms
20.	the distance, arc, etc, through which something, such as a pendulum, moves
21.	a wide expanse or scope: the sweep of the plains
22.	any curving line or contour
23.	cards
	a. the winning of every trick in a hand of whist
	b. the taking, by pairing, of all exposed cards in cassino
24.	short for sweepstake
25.	cricket a shot in which the ball is hit more or less square on the leg side from a half-kneeling position with the bat held nearly horizontal
26.	a. a long oar used on an open boat
	b. (Austral) a person steering a surf boat with such an oar
27.	any of the sails of a windmill
28.	electronics a steady horizontal or circular movement of an electron beam across or around the fluorescent screen of a cathode-ray tube
29.	agriculture
	a. a rakelike attachment for the front of a motor vehicle for pushing hay into piles
	b. a triangular blade on a cultivator used to cut through roots below the surface of the soil
30.	a curving driveway
31.	chiefly (Brit) See chimney sweep
32.	another name for swipe
33.	clean sweep
	a. an overwhelming victory or success
	b. a complete change; purge: to make a clean sweep

[C13 swepen; related to Old English swāpan, Old Norse sveipa; see swipe, swoop]

'sweepy

—*adj*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

sweep

c.1300, perhaps from a past tense form of M.E. swope "sweep," from O.E. swapan "to sweep" (transitive & intransitive); see swoop. The noun meaning "range, extent" is attested from 1679; in ref. to police or military actions, it is attested from 1837. Sense of "a winning of

EXPAND

all the tricks in a card game" is from 1814 (see sweepstakes); extended to other sports by 1960. As a shortened form of chimney-sweeper, first attested 1812.

COLLAPSE

American Heritage

Idioms & Phrases

sweep

In addition to the idioms beginning with sweep, also see make a clean sweep; new broom sweeps clean; (sweep) off someone's feet.