Dictionary

May-day sweep en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio
• /meɪ deɪ swip/ (US)
• (US) audio
• /meɪ deɪ swiːp/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

From May Day (“workers' spring holiday”) + sweep (“ellipsis of chimney sweep”).

Meanings

1. (qualifier:largely historical) One of the sweeps (chimney sweeps), clad in bright clothes and garlands and carrying a blackened broom, in a May Day parade.
   • […] preceded by a drum and fife, and followed by the successful marksman, who, dressed out with flowers and ribands as fantastically as a May-day sweep in England, expressed his joy by dancing and pirouetting amidst his friends, who congratulated and cheered him. 1829, W. Brockedon, The Passes of the Alps, printed in The London Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, page 345 http://books.google.com/books?id=hSMAAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22May%20Day%20sweep%22&pg=PA344#v=onepage&q=%22May%20Day%20sweep%22&f=false
   • Thanks to certain alchemic pens, which have touched even garbage to gold-paper, murder has been as fine, and withal as jocund among us, as a May-day sweep. 1843, Punch, volume 5, page 158:
   • Brown and Emily Bustleton are whirling round as light as two pigeons over a dove-cot; Tozer, with that wicked whisking little Jones, spins along as merrily as a May-day sweep; Miss Joy is The partner of the happy Fred. 1847, Littell's Living Age, volume 12, page 296:
   • The common herd of mortals invent excuses : they shuffle like a May-day sweep, and lie like the prospectus of a new Magazine. 1823, New Monthly Magazine, volume 8, page 355:
   • […] but anything would have been better than sitting at table with a thing only fit for a May-day sweep on one's head. 1876, Lady Barker, The Kafir at Home, printed in The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, volume 23 (87?), page 221 http://books.google.com/books?id=YbkmAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22May%20Day%20sweep%22&pg=PP15#v=onepage&q=%22May%20Day%20sweep%22&f=false

Forms