Swatch

A swatch of hair, cleaned with a cosmetic treatment (shampoo, conditioner, etc.), is wetted, combed and then tangled according to a standardized protocol. The combing forces on the swatch are measured with an extensometer.

Pray Sir, pay off the Old Debt, before I truſt you more New. This is a Swatch of Your Faith, and how much You are a Man of Your Word.

There were about nine score strangers in Midgehop; four score of them William Blaik entertained, [...]. And I believe their neighbour, Robert Bigger would be much the same. This I record once for all, for a swatch of the hospitality of the parish; for God has given this people a largeness of heart, to communicate of their substance, on these and other occasions also.

Their choosing such a moderator, so guilty of our national defections, of commissions and omissions, was a swatch of what members in the first assembly was made up of; men who had sinned away zeal and faithfulness, by wallowing in that sink and puddle of our national abominations of indulgences and toleration, and many otherwise guilty of sinful and shameful silence and unfaithfulness; [...]

ITEM that the said Clerkis of the Brevements entre all the Taillis of the Furniunturs in the Jornall Booke in the Countynghous every day furthwith after the Brede be delyveret to the Pantre and then the Stoke [i.e., main part] of the Taill to by delyveret to the Baker and the Swache to the Pantler. … ITEM that the said Clerkis of the Brevements entre all the Taills of the Brasyantors in the Jornall Booke in the Countynghous at every tyme furthwith after the Bere be delyveret into the Buttry and then the Stoke of the Taill to be delyveret to the Brewar and the Swatche to the Butler.

A SWACHE, A Tally. N[orth] C[ountry]

Swatch, s[ubstantive] a pattern, a sample, a tally. V[ide] Ray [Collection of English Words (London, 1691)], swache.

Swatch, sb. [substantive] A wooden tally. / In the days of spinning-wheels and home-woven cloth, &c., it was customary to affix Swatches to the various rolls of cloth sent to the dyer's, which in this part of Cleveland were marked with the initials of the sender. According to the Wh. Gl. [A Glossary of Yorkshire Words and Phrases Collected in Whitby and the Neighbourhood, by an Inhabitant (London, 1855)] another mode of recognition was by cutting out a portion of the Swatch, and returning it to the bringer. This, when the dyeing was complete, on being fitted into the gap left, enabled the owner to recognise his own piece of cloth, or what not.

Swatching is important in knitting to obtain the correct gauge.

This season, before you even think about the makeup you need, think about the beige/grey/rust/brown colors—and the clothes—you've been seeing on the preceding pages (to remind you, we've swatched some of them here).

Swatching may seem like a tedious chore when you're trying the gauge for a commercial yarn. But when you've just dyed your first skein of handpainted yarn, you'll be more than eager to see what it looks like worked up into a pattern.

When I first learned how to knit, it didn't occur to me that beads could be incorporated into knitting. […] I swatched and ripped, then swatched and ripped again—until I figured out how to get the beads to lie exactly where I wanted them to be.

It muſt be obſerved, that the paſſages, called Cockerlees, are no other than ſwatches through the Long-Sand.

The Swatch, or Swatch of no ground, a chaſm in the bank, is ſituated between the latitudes of 21° and 21° 22′ North, and the middle of it lies about 50 leagues Weſt of the meridian of the White Cliffs.

Opposite the middle of the delta, at the distance of thirty or forty miles from the coast, a deep submarine valley occurs, called the "swatch of no ground," about fifteen miles in diameter, where soundings of 180, and even 300, fathoms fail to reach the bottom. […] As the mud is known to extend for eighty miles farther into the gulf, an enormous thickness of matter must have been deposited in "the swatch."