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Home  »  A Dictionary of Similes  »  Swift

Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.

Swift

As the breezes swift.
—Thomas Aird

Swift as the lightning flash.
—Mark Akenside

Swift as a cannon ball.
—Anonymous

Swift as fate.
—Anonymous

Swift as kindling flames arise.
—Anonymous

Swift as the glance of a falling star.
—Anonymous

Swifter than fleeing Daphne’s twinkling feet.
—Anonymous

Swift as the steed that feels the slackened rein.
—Anonymous

Swift like a simoon of the desert.
—Anonymous

Swifter than the falcon.
—Max Beerbohm

Swift as a sun-beam.
—Thomas Blacklock

Swift as the summer lightning.
—R. D. Blackmore

Swift as arrow.
—William Blake

Swift as the eye can mark.
—Henry H. Brownell

Swift as Jove’s lightning.
—William Byrd

Swift almost as a human smile may chase
A frown from some conciliated face.
—Pedro Calderón de la Barca

Swefte as descendeynge lemes [rays] of roddie lyghte plonged to the hulstred [secret] bedde of loveynge [washing] seas.
—Thomas Chatterton

Swefte as a feether’d takel [Arrow].
—Thomas Chatterton

Swefte as my wyshe.
—Thomas Chatterton

Swift as the flying clouds distilling rain.
—Thomas Chatterton

Swefte as the rayne-storme toe the erthe alyghtes.
—Thomas Chatterton

Swefte, as the rayne uponne an Aprylle daie.
—Thomas Chatterton

Swefte as the roareynge wyndes.
—Thomas Chatterton

Swift as fowel in flight.
—Geoffrey Chaucer

As swifte as pelet out of gonne.
—Geoffrey Chaucer

Swift as a spirit.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Swift as dreams.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Swift as a sun ray.
—Eliza Cook

Swift as a lover’s dreams.
—Barry Cornwall

Swift as Care.
—Nathaniel Cotton

As swift and fierce as tempest from the north.
—Abraham Cowley

Swift as the wings of Morn.
—Abraham Cowley

Swifter than a shadow flee.
—William Cowper

Swift as a star falls through the night.
—George Darley

Swift as a sunshot dart of light.
—George Darley

Swift as a whirlwind.
—Thomas Dekker

Swift as dead leaves by tempest borne.
—Aubrey De Vere

Swift as the scattered clouds on high.
—Alfred Domett

As swift as the glance of the arrowy lance
That the storm spirit flings from high.
—Joseph Rodman Drake

Swift as the wings of sound.
—George Eliot

A swift movement, which was like a chained up resolution set free at last.
—George Eliot

Swift as fate.
—Philip Freneau

Swift as vision.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Swift as the flight of lightning through the air.
—William Harbington

Swift as a flood of fire.
—Homer (Pope)

Swift as the vulture leaping on his prey.
—George Eliot

Swift as the wind.
—George Eliot

Swift as a swallow heading south.
—Laurence Hope

Swifter than the rush of wind
That lifts the sea-gull off the lake.
—Douglas Hyde

Swift as a star.
—Sir William Jones

Swift as a fathoming plummet down he fell.
—John Keats

As swift
As bird on wing to breast its eggs again.
—George Eliot

Swift as fairy thought.
—George Eliot

Swifter than centaurs after rapine bent.
—George Eliot

Swifter than sight.
—George Eliot

Swift as the cloven tongues of Pentecost.
—Harriet E. Hamilton King

Flies as swift as shafts the bowmen pour.
—Andrew Lang

Swift as the lightning’s rapid flame darts on the unsuspecting sight.
—John Langhorne

Swift as a flash.
—Henry W. Longfellow

Swift as the thunderbolt.
—Richard Lovelace

Swift as the sea-bird’s wing.
—Samuel Lover

Swift as runs a wind-wave over grass.
—Gerald Massey

Swift as a blush in the cheeks of seventeen.
—George Meredith

Swift as the lightning glance.
—John Milton

Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star.
—John Milton

Swift as Death’s own arrows dart.
—James Montgomery

Swifter than the frighted dove.
—James Montgomery

Fly swifter than light.
—Dinah Maria Mulock

Swift as mercury.
—Thomas Nash

Swift, like some fierce bird of prey.
—Robert Pollok

Swift as an arrow soaring from the bow.
—Alexander Pope

Swift as a cloud gust-driven from the sun.
—T. Buchanan Read

Swift as a shadow o’er the meadow grass chased by the sunshine.
—T. Buchanan Read

Swift as signal fires.
—T. Buchanan Read

Swift as memory.
—Edouard Rod

Swift as the fleeting shades upon the golden corn.
—Nicholas Rowe

Swift as a hawk.
—Charles Sangster

Like a sunbeam, swift.
—Sir Walter Scott

Swift as a shadow.
—William Shakespeare

Swift as breathed stags.
—William Shakespeare

Swift as frenzy’s thoughts.
—William Shakespeare

Swift as lead.
—William Shakespeare

As swift
As meditation, or the thoughts of love.
—William Shakespeare

Swift as quicksilver.
—William Shakespeare

Swift as stones
Enforced from the old Assyrian slings.
—William Shakespeare

Swifter than arrow from the Tartar’s bow.
—William Shakespeare

Swift as thought.
—William Shakespeare

Swift in motion as a ball.
—William Shakespeare

Swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer’s bucket.
—William Shakespeare

Swifter than the moon’s sphere.
—William Shakespeare

Swift as a cloud between the sea and sky.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

Swift as fire.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

Swift as greyhounds.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

Swift as leaves on autumn’s tempest shed.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

Swift as smoke from a volcano springs.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

Swift as twinkling beams.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

Swifter than summer’s flight.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

Swifter than youth’s delight.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

Swift as a beam of morning.
—Elizabeth S. Sheppard

Swift as an arrow in its flight.
—Robert Southey

Swift as a falling meteor.
—Robert Southey

Swift as the bittern soars on spiral wing.
—Robert Southey

Swift away like fabrics in the summer’s clouds.
—Robert Southey

Swift as any bucke in chace.
—Edmund Spenser

More swift than Myrrh’ or Daphne in her race.
—Edmund Spenser

Swift as the flame devours the crackling wood.
—Statius

Swift as the headlong torrents of a flood.
—Edmund Spenser

Swift as a passing bird.
—Robert Louis Stevenson

Swift and steadfast as a sea-mew’s wing.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne

Swift as a shadow.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne

Swift as eternity.
—Arthur Symons

As swift as fiery lightning kindled new.
—Torquato Tasso

As swift as the eagle flieth.
—Old Testament

As swift as the roes upon the mountains.
—Old Testament

Swift as the waters.
—Old Testament

Swifter than a weaver’s shuttle.
—Old Testament

Swifter than the eagles of the heaven.
—Old Testament

Now my days are swifter than a post: they flee away, they see no good.
—Old Testament

Swift as desire.
—Thomas Tickell

Swift as the motions of desire.
—Isaac Watts

Swift as the Polar breeze.
—Henry Kirke White

Swift as the eagle’s glance of fire.
—John Greenleaf Whittier

Swift as a rocketing woodcock.
—Harry Leon Wilson

Swift as a Thracian Nymph o’er field and height.
—William Wordsworth

Swift as darted flame.
—Edward Young