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nder; to rope. [Obs.] A maid thitherward did run, To catch her sparrow which from her did swerve. Sir P. Sidney.

One who swerves from and is unfaithful to the marriage vow. [Poetic] Shak.

To stop abruptly and stand still obstinately; to jib; to stop short; to swerve; as, the horse balks.

line. Being ignorant that there is a concealed bias within the spheroid, which will . . . swerve away. Sir W. Scott.

To bend; to crook; as, to curve a line; to curve a pipe; to cause to swerve from a straight course; as, to curve a ball in pitching it.

ate from a right or a horizontal line, or from a proper position, course or direction; to swerve. At some part of the Azores, the needle deflecteth not, but lieth in the true meridian. Sir T. Browne. To deflect from the line of truth and reason. Warburton.

To step or turn aside; to deviate; to swerve; especially, to turn aside from the main subject of attention, or course of argument, in writing or speaking. Moreover she beginneth to digress in latitude. Holland. In the pursuit of an argument there is hardly room to digress into a particular definition as often as a man…

Free from passion; not warped, prejudiced, swerved, or carried away by passion or feeling; judicial; calm; composed. Wise and dispassionate men. Clarendon.

Idle babbling; vain disputation. From which some, having swerved, have turned aside unto vain jangling. 1 Tim. i. 6.

To observe; to adhere to; to fulfill; not to swerve from or violate; to practice or perform, as duty; not to neglect; to be faithful to. I have kept the faith. 2 Tim. iv. 7. Him whom to love is to obey, and keep His great command. Milton.

Lasting but a moment; brief. Not one momental minute doth she swerve. Breton.

Consequence; event; effect; result; as, let the sun cease, fail, or swerve, and the sequel would be ruin.

To decline or deviate from the line of the proper course; to turn aside; to swerve; as, a ship sheers from her course; a horse sheers at a bicycle. To sheer off, to turn or move aside to a distance; to move away. -- To sheer up, to approach obliquely.

To continue; to retain a certain state. Firm we subsist, yet possible to swerve. Milton.

To swerve. [Obs. or Scot.] Spenser. Jamieson.

To deviate; to depart; to swerve; -- followed by from; as, to vary from the law, or from reason. Locke.

to turn or incline from a straight, true, or proper course; to deviate; to swerve. There is our commission, From which we would not have you warp. Shak.

To deviate from the right way; to go away or astray; to turn side; to swerve. This Phebus gan awayward for to wryen. Chaucer. How many Must murder wives much better than themselves For wrying but a little! Shak.