Literary notes about SWAG (AI summary)
The word "swag" in literature is remarkably versatile, functioning both as a concrete term for a bundle of personal belongings and as a metaphor for a character’s demeanor or fate. In some contexts, it straightforwardly denotes a package or load—often of stolen loot or personal effects—even described in detail as items rolled up in a blanket ([1], [2], [3]). In other instances, authors use "swag" to evoke a sense of relaxed movement or an informal, confident bearing, implying how characters carry both physical loads and the weight of their experiences ([4], [5], [6]). This duality enriches narrative textures, allowing the term to oscillate between tangible property and evocative imagery that reflects character and circumstance ([7], [8]).
- The latter arrived first, and Jurgis found him examining the “swag.”
— from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair - i. p. 285: "Swag, which consists of his personal properties rolled up in a blanket."
— from Austral English
A dictionary of Australasian words, phrases and usages with those aboriginal-Australian and Maori words which have become incorporated in the language, and the commoner scientific words that have had their origin in Australasia by Edward Ellis Morris - and he fished a handful of jewelry from one of his side pockets; “this is some of the swag I stole last night when I robbed a house.”
— from The Oakdale Affair by Edgar Rice Burroughs - Ryan sighed heavily as he resumed his swag.
— from In the Roaring Fifties by Edward Dyson - V. be pendent &c. adj.; hang, depend, swing, dangle; swag; daggle[obs3], flap, trail, flow; beetle.
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget - Three of our boys were killed, however, before we got the swag.
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - “Tell you what, sir,” whispered the sergeant; “there’s only one chap in it, and he’s got such a swag he’s obliged to keep stopping to rest.”
— from The Kopje Garrison: A Story of the Boer War by George Manville Fenn - Your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander- Drink, ho!- are nothing to your English.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare