What does pendant swag mean?
A.: Pendant swag refers to a lamp whose chain or cord is draped, or swagged, between two or more points on a ceiling. According to Michael Quinion of World Wide Words, swag is “…a word imported into Middle English from Scandinavian svagga, to sway (in fact, it’s the origin of sway as well). At first, the verb meant to rock unsteadily or lurch, but evolved into that of hanging loosely or heavily, to sag. Another sense of swag comes from the same idea — for an ornamental festoon, or for fabric fastened so it hangs in a drooping curve; this was first recorded at the end of the eighteenth century. It’s also the origin of the American swag lamp sense […], in which the lamp’s electrical cable hangs in a swag.
