swathe1

 
Pronunciation: /sweɪð/
(chiefly North American also swath /sweɪð, swɒθ/)

noun (plural swathes /sweɪðz/ or swaths /sweɪðz, swɒθs/)

  • 1a row or line of grass, corn, or other crop as it falls or lies when mown or reaped: if the day is windy, the swathes should be high and narrow swathes of barley
  • a strip left clear by the passage of a mowing machine or scythe: the combine had cut a deep swathe around the border of the fields
  • 2a broad strip or area of something: vast swathes of countryside figurative a significant swathe of popular opinion

Phrases

cut a swathe through

pass through (something) causing great damage, destruction, or change: AIDS has cut a swathe through battalions of ordinary people

cut a wide swath

North American attract a great deal of attention by trying to impress others.

Origin:

Old English swæth, swathu 'track, trace', of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch zwad(e) and German Schwade. In Middle English the term denoted a measure of the width of grassland, probably reckoned by a sweep of the mower's scythe