different between swerve vs coil

English

Alternative forms

• swarve

Etymology

From Middle English swerven, swarven, from Old English sweorfan (“to file; rub; polish; scour; turn aside”), from Proto-Germanic *swerban? (“to rub off; wipe; mop”), from Proto-Indo-European *swerb?- (“to turn; wipe; sweep”). Cognate with West Frisian swerve (“to wander; roam; swerve”), Dutch zwerven (“to wander; stray; roam”), Low German swarven (“to swerve; wander; riot”), Swedish dialectal svärva (“to wipe”), Icelandic sverfa (“to file”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /sw??(?)v/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /sw?v/
• Rhymes: -??(r)v

Verb

swerve (third-person singular simple present swerves, present participle swerving, simple past and past participle swerved)

1. (archaic) To stray; to wander; to rove.

   • A maid thitherward did run, / To catch her sparrow which from her did swerve.

2. To go out of a straight line; to deflect.
3. To wander from any line prescribed, or from a rule or duty; to depart from what is established by law, duty, custom, or the like; to deviate.
   • 1785, The Book of Common Prayer According to the Use in King's Chapel

     I swerve not from thy commandments.

   • They swerve from the strict letter of the law.

   • October 28, 1705, Francis Atterbury, a sermon

     many who, through the contagion of evil example, swerve exceedingly from the rules of their holy Faith

4. To bend; to incline.
5. To climb or move upward by winding or turning.
   • c. 1692, John Dryden, Amaryllis

     The tree was high; / Yet nimbly up from bough to bough I swerved.

6. To turn aside or deviate to avoid impact.
7. Of a projectile, to travel in a curved line
8. To drive in the trajectory of another vehicle to stop it, to cut off.
   • 1869, Leo Tolstoy, War & Peace, Part 10, Chapter 39:

     The French invaders, like an infuriated animal that has in its onslaught received a mortal wound, felt that they were perishing, but could not stop, any more than the Russian army, weaker by one half, could help swerving.

Related terms

• swarf

Translations

Noun

swerve (plural swerves)

1. A sudden movement out of a straight line, for example to avoid a collision.
   • 1990, American Motorcyclist (volume 44, number 7, page 11)

     The distinction between using a skill subconsciously and employing it in the full knowledge of what was happening made a dramatic difference. I could execute a swerve to avoid an obstacle in a fraction of the time it previously took.

2. A deviation from duty or custom.
   • 1874, William Edwin Boardman, Faith-work, Or the Labours of Dr. Cullis, in Boston (page 56)

     […] indubitable evidence of a swerve from the principle of the work.

Derived terms

• body swerve

Translations

Anagrams

• Wevers

Middle English

Verb

swerve

1. Alternative form of swerven

English

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /k??l/
• Rhymes: -??l

Etymology 1

From Middle French coillir (“to gather, pluck, pick, cull”) (French: cueillir), from Latin colligo (“to gather together”), past participle collectus, from com- (“together”) + lego (“to gather”); compare legend. Doublet of cull.

Noun

coil (plural coils)

1. Something wound in the form of a helix or spiral.

   • The wild grapevines that twisted their coils or tendrils from tree to tree.

2. Any intrauterine device (Abbreviation: IUD)—the first IUDs were coil-shaped.
3. (electrical) A coil of electrically conductive wire through which electricity can flow.

   Synonym: inductor

4. (figuratively) Entanglement; perplexity.

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ??? (koiru)

Translations

Verb

coil (third-person singular simple present coils, present participle coiling, simple past and past participle coiled)

1. To wind or reel e.g. a wire or rope into regular rings, often around a centerpiece.

2. To wind into loops (roughly) around a common center.

3. To wind cylindrically or spirally.

4. (obsolete, rare) To encircle and hold with, or as if with, coils.
   • a. 1757, Thomas Edwards, sonnet to Mr. Nathanael Mason

     Pleasure coil thee in her dangerous snare

Translations

Etymology 2

Origin unknown.

Noun

coil (plural coils)

1. (now obsolete except in phrases) A noise, tumult, bustle, or turmoil.
   • a. 1738, Thomas Urquhart, Peter Anthony Motteux, and John Ozell (translators), François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel

     And when he saw that all the dogs were flocking about her, yarring at the retardment of their access to her, and every way keeping such a coil with her as they are wont to do about a proud or salt bitch, he forthwith departed […]

   • 1594, William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, Act III:

     If the windes rage, doth not the Sea wax mad, / Threatning the welkin with his big-swolne face? / And wilt thou haue a reason for this coile?

   • 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, in Kupperman 1988, p. 162:

     this great Savage desired also to see him. A great coyle there was to set him forward.

Derived terms

• mortal coil

Translations

Further reading

• coil in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• coil in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• Clio, coli, loci

Irish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [k?l?]

Noun 1

coil m

1. vocative/genitive singular of col (“prohibition; sin, lust; violation; dislike; incest; relation, relationship”)

Noun 2

coil m

1. inflection of col (“col”):
   1. vocative/genitive singular
   2. nominative/dative plural

Mutation