swayback, n. and a.
A. n.
1. a. Sway-backed condition. Also, an instance of this.
| a 1913 in Dorland Med. Dict. 1939 J. Cary Mister Johnson 156 She is a huge, lumbering woman... She has a sway back..and long heels like a hen. 1946 Richmond (Va.) News-Leader 14 Nov. 30 (heading) Swayback is figure fault. Exercises quickly correct. |
b. A sway-backed horse or lamb. Also transf., of a person.
| 1874 Rep. Vermont Board Agric. II. 402 The buckskin McClellan was a regular hollow or sway back. 1921 S. Kaye-Smith Joanna Godden i. 35 ‘He'd three sway⁓backed lambs at Rye market on Thursday.’ ‘Sway⁓backs!’ ‘Three. 'Twas a shame.’ 1934 S. Beckett More Pricks than Kicks 68 A woman..is either: a short-below-the-waist, a big-hip, a sway-back, a big-abdomen or an average. 1974 M. Laurence Diviners iv. 80 Make pemmican out of the swayback which dropped dead of exhaustion on the Back Forty. |
2. A copper deficiency disease affecting the nervous system of young lambs, causing paralysis. Cf. renguerra.
| 1938 Nature 5 Mar. 400/1 Swayback..accounts from time to time for many lambs. 1947 Sci. News V. 100 Research has been going on into a disease of newborn lambs called swayback. 1960 Farmer & Stockbreeder 1 Mar. 105/3 Injection of a copper preparation..into a ewe during pregnancy can prevent swayback in its lambs. 1970 ‘J. Herriot’ If only they could Talk xxv. 149 The diseases which beset the lambs themselves—swayback, pulpy kidney, dysentery. 1980 Daily Tel. 16 Feb. 12/6 Thousands of lambs may die from a nervous disorder called swayback. |
B. adj. Sway-backed.
| 1887 T. N. Page Ole Virginia (1893) 118 A man riding a sway-back sorrel horse. |