Time for another word brought to us by Shakespeare!
This one is fascinating because Shakespeare completely changed the meaning of an existent word. Swoop had been in use already, but it meant “to move or walk in a stately manner,” much like sweep. Then Shakespeare came along and, in 1605, used it in Macbeth to describe a bird of prey, thereby adding the meaning “to pounce with a sweeping motion”…and it stuck!
Oh, Hell-Kite! All? What, All my pretty Chickens, and their Damme, At one fell swoope? [“Macbeth,” IV.iii.219]
In fact, he was the first to use swoop as a noun! (And note that the phrase above is still in use today, “one fell swoop”!) The verb took on that meaning shortly thereafter as well. So thank you, Shakespeare, for yet again redefining words for us! 😉
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Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.