The cross-bar to which the traces of a cart or plough are fastened. Eng. dial.
1819. [The dead horse] was tied to a swingletree, and was thus dragged off.—Mass. Spy, March 24: from the N.Y. Evening Post.
1834. The horses gave such a spring to free themselves from the waggon, that the swingletree-bolt snapped.—C. F. Hoffman, ‘A Winter in the Far West,’ i. 281 (Lond., 1835).
1840. The horse broke loose from the coach, taking with him a part of what are now called “lead bars,” but which [were formerly] called swingle trees.—Mr. Grundy of Tennessee, U.S. Senate, March 5: Cong. Globe, p. 227, App.
1842. If I hain’t larnt him everything and a good deal more, may I be swingled treed with a broad axe.—Phila. Spirit of the Times, March 24.
*** In the last quotation, the allusion appears to be to swingle-tree, the movable part of a flail.
