Swarm
King James Dictionary [1]
Swarm n. sworm. L. ferveo, and boiling is very expressive of the motions of a swarm of bees. See the Verb.
1. In a general sense, a large number or body of small animals or insects, particularly when in motion but appropriately, a great number of honey bees which emigrate from a hive at once, and seek new lodgings under the direction of a queen or a like body of bees united and settled permanently in a hive. The bees that leave a hive in spring, are the young bees produced in the year preceding. Exodus 8; Judges 14 . 2. A swarm or multitude particularly, a multitude of people in motion. Swarms of northern nations overran the south of Europe in the fifth century.
Note.--The application of this word to inanimate things, as swarms of advantages, by Shakespeare, and swarms of themes, by Young, is not legitimate, for the essence of the word is motion.
SWARM, sworm.
1. To collect and depart from a hive by flight in a body, as bees. Bees swarm in warm, clear days in summer. 2. To appear or collect in a crowd to run to throng together to congregate in a multitude.
In crowds around the swarming people join.
3. To be crowded to be thronged with a multitude of animals in motion. The forests in America often swarm with wild pigeons. The northern seas in spring swarm with herrings.
Every place swarms with soldiers.
Such phrases as "life swarms with ills," "those days swarmed with fables," are not legitimate, or wholly obsolete.
4. To breed multitudes. 5. To climb, as a tree, by embracing it with the arms and legs, and scrambling.
At the top was placed a piece of money, as a prize for those who could swarm up and seize it.
Note.--This, by the common people in New England, is pronounced squirm or squurm, and it is evidently formed on worm, indicating that worm and warm, on which swarm and squirm are formed, are radically the same word. The primary sense is to bend, wind, twist, as a worm, or a swarm of bees. It may be formed on the foot of veer, vary.
SWARM, To crowd or throng. Not in use.
Webster's Dictionary [2]
(1): ( n.) A large number or mass of small animals or insects, especially when in motion.
(2): ( n.) Especially, a great number of honeybees which emigrate from a hive at once, and seek new lodgings under the direction of a queen; a like body of bees settled permanently in a hive.
(3): ( n.) Hence, any great number or multitude, as of people in motion, or sometimes of inanimate objects; as, a swarm of meteorites.
(4): ( v. i.) To climb a tree, pole, or the like, by embracing it with the arms and legs alternately. See Shin.
(5): ( v. i.) To appear or collect in a crowd; to throng together; to congregate in a multitude.
(6): ( v. t.) To crowd or throng.
(7): ( v. i.) To collect, and depart from a hive by flight in a body; - said of bees; as, bees swarm in warm, clear days in summer.
(8): ( v. i.) To be crowded; to be thronged with a multitude of beings in motion.
(9): ( v. i.) To abound; to be filled (with).
(10): ( v. i.) To breed multitudes.
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [3]
is the rendering, in the A. V., of two very different Hebrew words.
1. עֵדָה , ‘ Ed '''''Â''''' H'' (usually rendered "congregation" or "Assembly" ), is employed to designate the swarm of bees and honey found by Samson in the lion's carcass ( Judges 14:8). The lion which Samson slew had been dead some little time before the bees had taken up their abode in the carcass, for it is expressly stated that "after a time" Samson returned and saw the bees and honey in the lion's carcass, so that "if," as Oedmann has well observed, "anyone here represents to himself a corrupt and putrid carcass, the occurrence Ceases to have any true similitude, for it is well known that in these countries, at certain seasons of the year, the heat will, in the course of twenty-four hours, so completely dry up the moisture of dead camels, and that without their undergoing decomposition, that Their bodies long remain, like mummies, unaltered and entirely free from offensive odor." To the foregoing quotation we may add that very probably the ants would help to consume the carcass, and leave, perhaps, in a short time, little else than a skeleton. Herodotus (5. 114) speaks of a certain Oinesilus, who had been taken prisoner by the Amathusians and beheaded, and whose head, having been suspended over the gates, had become occupied by a swarm of bees; comp. also Aldrovandus (De Insect. 1, 110). Dr. Thomson (Land and Book, 2, 362) mentions this occurrence of a swarm of bees in a lion's carcass as an extraordinary thing, and makes an unhappy conjecture that perhaps "hornets," debabir in Arabic, are intended, "if it were known," says he, "that they manufactured honey enough to meet the demands of the story." It is known however, that hornets do not make honey, nor do any of the family Vespidae, with the exception, so far as has been hitherto observed, of the Brazilian Nectarina mellifica. (See Bee).
2. עָלב , ‘ Ar '''''Ô''''' B'' is the term applied to the fourth of the plagues (q.v.) of Egypt ( Exodus 8:8-31; "divers sorts of flies," Psalms 78:45; Psalms 105:31). It is regarded by most interpreters as a species of Gadfly, or Tabanus (Michaelis, Supplem. P. 1960), such as is still very troubiesome to animals in Egypt (Forskal, Descr. Amnin. P. 85; Rippell, Arab. p. 73). See Bochart, Flieroz. 3, 472; Werner, in the Miscell. Lips. Nov. 3, 201 sq. (See Fly).
