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swab - n., an unpleasant or contemptible person; (UK naval) the epaulette worn by a naval or military officer, an officer himself; (US naval) a sailor in the navy or merchant marine.
The original sense started as naval, as a mop -- specifically the sort of yarn mop used to clean (swab) the decks, which word was a back-formation from swabber, sailor detailed to clean the decks, borrowed from nautical Middle Dutch zwabber and/or nautical German Schwabber, from a Germanic root with a sense of splash. From the dirty mop we got the person, escaping from the nautical context, and from the yarn we got the name for a fringed epaulette.
Bonus word: swagman
And that's another week from Green's -- back to the usual random assortment next week.
---L.
The original sense started as naval, as a mop -- specifically the sort of yarn mop used to clean (swab) the decks, which word was a back-formation from swabber, sailor detailed to clean the decks, borrowed from nautical Middle Dutch zwabber and/or nautical German Schwabber, from a Germanic root with a sense of splash. From the dirty mop we got the person, escaping from the nautical context, and from the yarn we got the name for a fringed epaulette.
Bonus word: swagman
And that's another week from Green's -- back to the usual random assortment next week.
---L.
