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For etymology also see etymology of german schweifen here: Martinus rex (talk) 07:35, 28 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
To clarify, swoop is from a variant of the verb swope, which is the expected descendant of the Old English form.
What meaning of down is used here? JMGN (talk) 20:17, 4 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
- @JMGN: The literal sense (downward). This is an extension of the metaphor of swooping, like a bird descends on its prey. You must use your imagination when metaphors are involved. (No offence: based on the questions you ask on talk pages , are you autistic?) 2A00:23C5:FE1C:3701:E554:283:652D:79BD 20:22, 4 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
- It's an idiom, not literal https://www.wordreference.com/definition/swoop JMGN (talk) 20:27, 4 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
- @JMGN: Yes, but a metaphor will often be extended in the way that the original (non-metaphorical) phrase was used. For example, we may say of a pregnant woman, "she has a bun in the oven". If the baby will come soon, we might add: "and it's almost fully baked". Babies aren't baked, but we are extending the idea of bun as baby. (And in such a case, asking "which sense of bake is used" is a waste of time, because it's the literal sense being used, but it's being used to extend the metaphor.) Do you understand? 2A00:23C5:FE1C:3701:E554:283:652D:79BD 23:01, 4 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
- Notice this extension comes form the original meaning "make a sweeping descent", so down is clearly redundant... JMGN (talk) 07:23, 5 June 2025 (UTC)Reply