swim
Plural: swims
Noun
- the act of swimming; :
- "it was the swimming they enjoyed most"
- "they took a short swim in the pool"
- An act or instance of swimming.
- The sound, or air bladder, of a fish.
- A part of a stream much frequented by fish.
- A dance or dance move of the 1960s in which the arms are moved in imitation of various swimming strokes, such as freestyle, breaststroke, etc.
- The flow of events; being in the swim of things.
- A dizziness; swoon.
- Abbreviation of someone who isn't me, used as a way to avoid self-designation or self-incrimination, especially in online drug forums.
Verb
Verb Forms: swam, swum, swimming, swims
- To propel oneself in water by natural means.
- travel through water
- "We had to swim for 20 minutes to reach the shore"
- "a big fish was swimming in the tank"
- be afloat either on or below a liquid surface and not sink to the bottom
- be dizzy or giddy
- "my brain is swimming after the bottle of champagne"
- be covered with or submerged in a liquid
- "the meat was swimming in a fatty gravy"
- move as if gliding through water
- "this snake swims through the soil where it lives"
- To move through the water, without touching the bottom; to propel oneself in water by natural means.
- To become immersed in, or as if in, or flooded with, or as if with, a liquid
- To move around freely because of excess space.
- To traverse (a specific body of water, or a specific distance) by swimming; or, to use a specific swimming stroke; or, to compete in a specific swimming event.
- To cause to swim.
- To float.
- To be overflowed or drenched.
- To immerse in water to make the lighter parts float.
- To test (a suspected witch) by throwing into a river; those who floated rather than sinking were deemed to be witches.
- To glide along with a waving motion.
- To have a great quantity of something.
- To be dizzy or vertiginous; have a giddy sensation; to have, or appear to have, a whirling motion.
Examples
- a bare few bits of meat swimming in watery sauce
- For exercise, we like to swim laps around the pool.
- Half of the guinea pigs were swum daily.
- Her strategy began to swim into focus as she saw a seven-letter word opportunity on the board.
- I want to swim the 200-yard breaststroke in the finals.
- I'm going for a swim.
- My head was swimming after drinking two bottles of cheap wine.
- She had a quick swim in the bay.
- sink or swim
- swimming in self-pity
- There's oil swimming on the water.
- to swim a horse across a river
- to swim wheat in order to select seed
- You should be swimming in money after this job.
Origin / Etymology
From Middle English swymmen, from Old English swimman (“to swim, float”) (class III strong verb; past tense swamm, past participle geswummen), from Proto-West Germanic *swimman, from Proto-Germanic *swimmaną (“to swoon, lose consciousness, swim”), from Proto-Indo-European *swem(bʰ)- (“to be unsteady, move, swim”).
Cognates
Cognate with Scots sweem, soom (“to swim”), Saterland Frisian swimme (“to swim”), West Frisian swimme (“to swim, float”), Dutch zwemmen (“to swim”), German schwimmen (“to swim”), Norwegian Bokmål and Danish svømme (“to swim”), Swedish simma (“to swim”), Norwegian Nynorsk symja (“to swim”).
Antonyms
Scrabble Score: 9
swim: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordswim: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
swim: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary