subs. phr. (old).—A very fat man or woman; a swing-paunch. [SWAG = to weigh heavily.] Hence SWAGGY (or SWAG-BELLIED) = fat, FORTY-GUTTED (q.v.).
1530. PALSGRAVE, Langue Francoyse. I SWAGGE, as a fatte persons belly swaggeth as he goth.
1602. SHAKESPEARE, Othello, ii. 3. Iago. I learned it in England, where, indeed, they are most potent in potting: your Dane, your German, and your SWAG-BELLIED Hollander,—Drink ho!—are nothing to your English.
1646. SIR T. BROWNE, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, III. iv. His SWAGGY and prominent BELLY.
1694. MOTTEUX, Rabelais, V. ‘The Pantagruelian Prognostication,’ v. However, so many SWAGBELLIES and puff-bags will hardly go to St Hiacco, as there did in the year 524.
1886. T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 462. The swagge of 1303 [see quot. 1530] is here used of a fat man’s belly; hence the swag-bellied Hollander, and also the later SWAGGER.
