May-day sweep

Etymology
May Day (workers' spring holiday) + sweep (shortening of chimney sweep)

Noun

 * 1)  One of the sweeps (chimney sweeps), clad in bright clothes and garlands and carrying a blackened broom, in a May Day parade.
 * 2) * 1829, W. Brockedon, The Passes of the Alps, printed in The London Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, page 345 :
 * preceded by a drum and fife, and followed by the successful marksman, who, dressed out with flowers and ribands as fantastically as a May-day sweep in England, expressed his joy by dancing and pirouetting amidst his friends, who congratulated and cheered him.
 * 1) * 1876, Lady Barker, The Kafir at Home, printed in The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, volume 23 (87?), page 221 :
 * but anything would have been better than sitting at table with a thing only fit for a May-day sweep on one's head.
 * 1) * 1876, Lady Barker, The Kafir at Home, printed in The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, volume 23 (87?), page 221 :
 * but anything would have been better than sitting at table with a thing only fit for a May-day sweep on one's head.
 * but anything would have been better than sitting at table with a thing only fit for a May-day sweep on one's head.