Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also swindger) anything or anyone notably large or forceful of its/their type.

1540		D. Lyndsay Satyre of Thrie Estaits (1604) 71: Howbeit that swingeour can not swyfe, He is baith cauld and dry.
1599		Warning for Faire Women K: I am sure there is a gallowes big enough to hold them both [...] Her man and her, and mistriss Sanders too, ’tis a swinger yfayth.
1648		R. Herrick ‘Twelfe Night’ Hesperides 377: And thus ye must doe / To make the wassaile a swinger.
1665		‘R.M.’ Scarronides 48: A Mother Damnable, a swinger, Just such another Ballad Singer.
c.1670		Purgatorium Hibernicum 10: Leaped to the shore a crew of swingers / Ready allmost to eat their fingers / ffor very hunger.
1696		in D’Urfey Comical Hist. of Don Quixote Pt III Epilogue: Yes – There’s a Swinger – by you Bully-Rocks.
1711		Vindication of H. Sacheverell 73: What say you to this Story about Sir Ch. H---t, it is a swinger if it be true.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy I 15: Uncle Rat too so well known, / That a swinger has on’s own.
1742–4		R. North Lives of Norths (1826) I 70: This motion, at that time, was indeed a swinger; for, in consequence, the execution of it [...] had lost the king irrecoverably.
1762		E. Collins ‘The Parson’ Misc. 36: For Beef, I’ve a Round-end of Warwick’s dun Cow, And for Ham, what a Swinger of David’s fat Sow.
1821		R. Waln Hermit in America on Visit to Phila. 2nd series 25: My attention was soon attracted by the voices of the players. [...] ‘What a swinger!’—‘Now you’re keel-hauled’.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 557: In Virginia [...] boys have for more than two centuries called a large snake or other formidable creature a swindger.

2. an outrageous lie.

1671		J. Eachard Observations upon the Answer [...] Contempt of Clergy (1705) 129: How will his puling Conscience be put to it, to rap out presently half a dozen swingers to get off cleaverly?
1683		Dialogue between a Yorkshire Alderman and a Salamanca Doctor 2: Did’st thou not swear that thou sawest him in Mass in St. James [...] That was a swinger.

3. (Aus.) an admirable person.

1938		J. Devanny Paradise Flow 27: He’s a swinger, all right.
1961		(con. early 1950s) J. Peacock Valhalla 59: They were good people all right. Down home swingers.

4. an exciting, lively place (usu. a club or bar).

1963		Dundes & Schonhorn ‘Kansas University Sl.: A New Generation’ in AS XXXVIII:3 171: A few of the more colourful expressions [for party] appearing once are: ball, bash, beer blast, blowout, boozer, bust, heller, rocker, shit kicker, shit stomper, smash, and swinger.
1976		Cab Calloway Of Minnie the Moocher and Me 58: The Sunset was a real swinger [...] with beautiful chorus girls, a ten-piece band, comedians and solo tap dancers.