(v. i.) To pass a broom across (a surface) so as to remove loose dirt, dust, etc.; to brush, or rub over, with a broom for the purpose of cleaning; as, to sweep a floor, the street, or a chimney. Used also figuratively.
(v. i.) To drive or carry along or off with a broom or a brush, or as if with a broom; to remove by, or as if by, brushing; as, to sweep dirt from a floor; the wind sweeps the snow from the hills; a freshet sweeps away a dam, timber, or rubbish; a pestilence sweeps off multitudes.
(v. i.) To brush against or over; to rub lightly along.
(v. i.) To carry with a long, swinging, or dragging motion; hence, to carry in a stately or proud fashion.
(v. i.) To strike with a long stroke.
(v. i.) To draw or drag something over; as, to sweep the bottom of a river with a net.
(v. i.) To pass over, or traverse, with the eye or with an instrument of observation; as, to sweep the heavens with a telescope.
(v. i.) To clean rooms, yards, etc., or to clear away dust, dirt, litter, etc., with a broom, brush, or the like.
(v. i.) To brush swiftly over the surface of anything; to pass with switness and force, as if brushing the surface of anything; to move in a stately manner; as, the wind sweeps across the plain; a woman sweeps through a drawing-room.
(v. i.) To pass over anything comprehensively; to range through with rapidity; as, his eye sweeps through space.
(n.) The act of sweeping.
(n.) The compass or range of a stroke; as, a long sweep.
(n.) The compass of any turning body or of any motion; as, the sweep of a door; the sweep of the eye.
(n.) The compass of anything flowing or brushing; as, the flood carried away everything within its sweep.
(n.) Violent and general destruction; as, the sweep of an epidemic disease.
(n.) Direction and extent of any motion not rectlinear; as, the sweep of a compass.
(n.) Direction or departure of a curve, a road, an arch, or the like, away from a rectlinear line.
(n.) One who sweeps; a sweeper; specifically, a chimney sweeper.
(n.) A movable templet for making molds, in loam molding.
(n.) The mold of a ship when she begins to curve in at the rungheads; any part of a ship shaped in a segment of a circle.
(n.) A large oar used in small vessels, partly to propel them and partly to steer them.
(n.) The almond furnace.
(n.) A long pole, or piece of timber, moved on a horizontal fulcrum fixed to a tall post and used to raise and lower a bucket in a well for drawing water.
(n.) In the game of casino, a pairing or combining of all the cards on the board, and so removing them all; in whist, the winning of all the tricks (thirteen) in a hand; a slam.
(n.) The sweeping of workshops where precious metals are worked, containing filings, etc.
Example Sentences:
(1) Now, as the Senate takes up a weakened House bill along with the House's strengthened backdoor-proof amendment, it's time to put focus back on sweeping reform.
(2) One man has died in storms sweeping across the UK that have brought 100-mile-an-hour winds and led to more than 50 flood warnings being issued with widespread disruption on the road and rail networks in much of southern England and Scotland.
(3) That’s a criticism echoed by Democrats in the Senate, who issued a report earlier this month criticising Republicans for passing sweeping legislation in July to combat addiction , the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (Cara), but refusing to fund it.
(4) he asked in a low voice, referring to the Sunni insurgents sweeping across northern Iraq .
(5) The Florida senator on Wednesday signed on to legislation that would delay the implementation of the sweeping surveillance reforms passed by Congress under the USA Freedom Act.
(6) The building blocks were laid out in a sweeping document presented by Van Rompuy and colleagues earlier this week that included sharing debt in the form of jointly issued eurobonds.
(7) For once, however, Beckham's timing was out, and his tenure has seen the club win nothing, and a new regime led by austere Italian Fabio Capello sweep away the superstar culture.
(8) Behind the broad sweep of pessimism, it is worth thinking about how the "eurozone in crisis" story could eventually improve.
(9) As fighter jets screamed overhead and tanks churned up the sand, it looked and sounded like the violent protests sweeping the Middle East had spread to the wealthy emirate of Abu Dhabi.
(10) Compulsory national testing for four- and five-year-olds in England from 2016 is to be introduced as part of sweeping changes being proposed to early years and primary education.
(11) In addition, the sine-sweep responses show quite different frequency characteristics in respect of depolarization and repolarization.
(12) The sweeping proposals are a sizeable step up in scale and urgency for a mayor who has for years emphasised the threat climate change poses to the city, which has 520 miles of coastline.
(13) Blinded by a series of sweeping victories, he forgot that the public saw in him not only stability, but also a hope for decentralisation and redistribution of power.
(14) In post-spike averages of 1000-10,000 sweeps, no evidence of reflex excitation of the homonymous motoneurone pool was detected.
(15) In 11 cases, barium examination of the upper gastrointestinal tract revealed prominent filling defects in the duodenal bulb and the duodenal sweep.
(16) Tom Tobler, a forecaster with MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said: "Gusts of 50mph to 60mph are sweeping across south-west England, central England and Wales, which will see the worst of the windy weather.
(17) Three US senators announced bills on Thursday that proposed the most sweeping structural changes to the secret court that oversees the legal basis for surveillance activities since it was set up 35 years ago.
(18) A "sweep" bend was incorporated to avoid unwanted side effects at the second premolar.
(19) However, the military remains unable to shift Isis from its strongholds or reverse the gains the group made during a stunning sweep through Mosul and Tikrit that continues to pose a grave threat to Iraq's borders.
(20) She may have her own reasons, but if this view takes hold, it will have sweeping implications.
Tangle
Definition:
(n.) To unite or knit together confusedly; to interweave or interlock, as threads, so as to make it difficult to unravel the knot; to entangle; to ravel.
(n.) To involve; to insnare; to entrap; as, to be tangled in lies.
(v. i.) To be entangled or united confusedly; to get in a tangle.
(n.) Any large blackish seaweed, especially the Laminaria saccharina. See Kelp.
(v.) A knot of threads, or other thing, united confusedly, or so interwoven as not to be easily disengaged; a snarl; as, hair or yarn in tangles; a tangle of vines and briers. Used also figuratively.
(v.) An instrument consisting essentially of an iron bar to which are attached swabs, or bundles of frayed rope, or other similar substances, -- used to capture starfishes, sea urchins, and other similar creatures living at the bottom of the sea.
Example Sentences:
(1) The fine structure of neurofibrillary tangles in the hippocampal gyrus, substantia nigra, pontine nuclei and locus coeruleus of the brain was postmortem studied in a case of progressive supranuclear palsy.
(2) It was the ease with which minor debt could slide into a tangle of hunger and despair.
(3) Although a trend was observed for TMA-DPH mobility to parallel histopathologic severity in hippocampal specimens, the biophysical changes did not appear to reflect a loss of neuronal membranes relative to glial membranes or the presence of senile plaques or neurofibrillary tangles.
(4) Neurofibrillary tangles (NFT), one of the pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease are observed in very high densities in the brains of former professional boxers suffering from dementia pugilistica.
(5) Elevated brain Al concentrations, especially in cortical regions, were associated with behavioral changes and the development of neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs).
(6) The smoky density of the mackerel was nicely offset by the pointed black olive tapenade and the fresh, zingy flavours present in little tangles of tomato, shallot, red pepper and spring onion, a layer of pea shoots and red chard, and the generous dressing of grassy olive oil.
(7) Changes were more severe in white matter close to cortical areas with a great density of neurofibrillary tangles.
(8) There is a tangled web between Salazar, Nike, Farah and the Nike Oregon Project on one hand, and the British Athletics performance director, Neil Black, and head of endurance, Barry Fudge, on the other.
(9) Whereas cortical senile plaque count did not distinguish well between demented and nondemented subjects, every subject with numerous cortical neurofibrillary tangles was demented.
(10) Clinical symptoms of amnesia appear when amyloid induces neighbouring neuritic alterations: paired helical filaments and distant neuronal body lesions: neurofibrillary tangles.
(11) Staggerer cerebellar cortex exhibits the greatest fluorescence with most terminals appearing as matted tangles adjacent cell bodies.
(12) Tangle-free neurons in both diseased and control brains showed weak to absent intracytoplasmic immunoreactivity.
(13) But tangled up in its visions of thousands of new “starter homes” – 5,000 more of which were promised on Monday, when the government said it was going to directly commission housebuilding on five sites in the south of England – are an array of drastic measures aimed at what remains of England’s council homes.
(14) The capacity for protein synthesis in tangled cells appears, therefore, to be progressively decreased with accumulation of tangle, whereas that for oxidative metabolism is maintained and lysosomal activity, perhaps, increased.
(15) On electron microscopy the normal lamellar pattern made up of orientated collagen fibrils all about 80 nm diameter is replaced by a random tangled pattern of much thinner irregularly curved fibrils, some as thin as 5nm.
(16) Eight brains failed to reveal considerable numbers of neuritic plaques, neurofibrillary tangles, and neuropil threads, but these brains showed the presence of abnormal and intensely argyrophilic grains loosely scattered throughout the neuropil.
(17) N-Terminal and C-terminal domains of tau were found to be present in tangles in situ.
(18) The neuropathological lesions were assessed using a fluorescent stain for neuritic plaques and neurofibrillary tangles.
(19) However, increased knowledge concerning macromolecular abnormalities in amyloid containing plaques and neurofibrillary tangles makes the outlook for a diagnostic test for AD on CSF promising.
(20) The trial, originally expected to be staid, has exposed severe dysfunction within Bo's family and detailed the complicated tangle of allegiances and affairs that led to his downfall .