[ adj ] severe; punishingly bad <adj.all> swingeing taxationswingeing damages awarded by the judge
Swingeing \Swinge"ing\, a. Huge; very large. [Colloq.] --Arbuthnot. --Byron. -- {Swinge"ing*ly}, adv. --Dryden.
Swinge \Swinge\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Swinged} (sw[i^]njd); p. pr. & vb. n. {Swingeing} (sw[i^]nj"[i^]ng).] [OE. swengen, AS. swengan to shake, causative of swingan. See {Swing}.] 1. To beat soundly; to whip; to chastise; to punish.
I had swinged him soundly. --Shak.
And swinges his own vices in his son. --C. Dryden.
2. To move as a lash; to lash. [Obs.]
Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail. --Milton.
Brokers made swingeing cuts to their forecasts, with Cazenove and BZW, the company's joint brokers, said to have lowered their 1994 profits predictions by 33 per cent from Pounds 60m to Pounds 40m.
The good is that, despite the swingeing cuts announced by Britain's defence minister Malcolm Rifkind yesterday, the Red Arrows, the internationally famous Royal Air Force aerobatics team, is to be left intact and soaring.
It also recommended that IRPF, the acronym for Spain's swingeing income tax, should be rendered 'irrupt'. Burns then keyed in (Mario) Conde, the disgraced financier who was removed from the chairmanship of Banesto by the Bank of Spain.
ICI's fibres operation has been a problem area for years, but the group had hoped to turn it around with swingeing cost cuts.
Although Britain's recession has been prolonged, it is only two years or so since the swingeing staff-cutting began.