the.com/swathe
the width of grass one scythe-sweep felled, now wrapped around everything from bandages to budget cuts
means To wrap or bind something in long strips of material, or a broad strip or band of something.
from From Old English 'swæth' or 'swathu', meaning a track, trace, or the strip of grass cut by a single sweep of a scythe. The mowing sense came first: a swathe was literally how much a reaper could fell in one swing, lying in a long row behind him. From that broad band of cut grass, the word spread to mean any long strip — and the related verb 'swathe', to wrap in bandages, likely shares the same Germanic root carrying the idea of binding or enclosing. Cousins survive in dialect words like 'swale'.
- farm origin
- meant a row of cut grain or hay
- two spellings
- swathe wraps, swath measures
- cut a swathe
- idiom borrowed from mowing destruction through fields
- scythe math
- old swath width set by arm reach
bandages on mummies — linen wrappings covering egyptian mummified bodies, thousands of layers per body
gauze on burn victims — medical wrapping to protect severe burns, standard er treatment worldwide
swaddling clothes on infants — tight cloth wrappings around newborns, practiced across cultures for thousands of years