Meaning of Sweep | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A single action of sweeping.
2. The person who steers a dragon boat.
3. A person who stands at the stern of a surf boat, steering with a steering oar and commanding the crew.
4. A chimney sweep.
5. A methodical search, typically for bugs (electronic listening devices).
6. A batsman's shot, played from a kneeling position with a swinging horizontal bat.
7. A lottery, usually on the results of a sporting event, where players win if their randomly chosen team wins.
8. A flow of water parallel to shore caused by wave action at an ocean beach or at a point or headland.
9. The degree to which an aircraft's wings are angled backwards (or, occasionally, forwards) from their attachments to the fuselage.
10. A throw or takedown that primarily uses the legs to attack an opponent's legs.
11. Violent and general destruction.
12. A movable template for making moulds, in loam moulding.
13. In the game casino, the act of capturing all face-up cards from the table.
14. The compass of any turning body or of any motion.
15. Direction or departure of a curve, a road, an arch, etc. away from a rectilinear line.
16. A large oar used in small vessels, partly to propel them and partly to steer them.
17. A rowing style in which each rower rows with oar on either the port or starboard side.
    attributive
18. The almond furnace.
    obsolete
19. A long pole, or piece of timber, moved on a horizontal fulcrum fixed to a tall post and used to raise and lower a bucket in a well for drawing water.
20. Any of the blades of a windmill.
21. The sweepings of workshops where precious metals are worked, containing filings, etc.
    in-plural
22. Any of several sea chubs in the family Kyphosidae (subfamily Scorpidinae).
23. An expanse or a swath, a strip of land.
24. singular of sweeps (“viewership ratings”)
    US, form-of, singular

Equivalents

Examples

“Give the front steps a quick sweep to get rid of those fallen leaves.”

“He was, perhaps, the English railwayman's conception of the French mécanicien - short and broad, black as a sweep even before we left Calais (but no blacker than I was on arrival at Paris) and wearing goggles and his uniform cap back to front.”

“Bradman attempted a sweep, but in fact top edged the ball to the wicket keeper”

“Jim will win fifty dollars in the office sweep if Japan wins the World Cup.”

“The MiG-17's inner wing has 45 degrees of sweep.”

“the sweep of an epidemic disease”

“the sweep of a door; the sweep of the eye”

“the road which makes a small sweep”

“I intend to muffle the sweeps and row the schooner up to the head of the creek there, from which point we can command the pile of sandal-wood with our gun.”

“I am primarily a sweep rower.”

“Octopus clambered about from hole to hole and startled sweep blurred away as we passed.”

“The Himalaya guards the southern rim of the plateau in one continuous sweep of 2250 km, each end marked by a massive mountain, Nanga Parbat on the Indus in the west and Namjagbarwa at the great bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo in the east.”

“A proposal to redistribute the diaries used in sweeps to provide a 4-week "buyer report" earlier than the normal November sweep followed by three quarterly reports was not welcomed […]”

CEFR level