swim
Verbswims, swimming, swam, swum
Noun pluralswims
Formsswims, swimming, swam, swum
Pluralswims
- 1To move through water by propelling oneself with the arms, legs, or fins, without touching the bottom.
Children often learn to swim more easily than adults do.
The ducks swam toward the bread floating on the surface.
Note
The oldest sense, and the verb's grammar still shows it. Old English swimman was a strong verb, which is why English says swam and swum, never 'swimmed.' Swum once served as a past tense too, but that use is now archaic, so today write she swam, she has swum. The deeper root meant 'to be unsteady, move,' and boats once swam as well: in Daniel Defoe's Captain Singleton (1720) a bark 'would swim no farther.'
- 2An act or instance of moving through water by swimming.
After the long hike, a swim in the cold river felt wonderful.
Her morning swim usually lasts about forty minutes.
Similardip
- 3To cross a particular body of water or distance by swimming, to use a particular stroke, or to compete in a particular event.
Each morning the athletes swim two thousand meters before breakfast.
She swam the butterfly in the final and set a new record.
- 4To feel dizzy or giddy, or to seem to move with a whirling motion.
After the third glass of wine, his head started to swim.
The crowded platform swam before me as the fever took hold.
Note
Two constructions carry this sense. A head swims, as in my head was swimming, and things swim before the eyes, as letters do in Letitia Elizabeth Landon's Ethel Churchill (1837). The first describes the sufferer's giddiness; the second describes how the world looks to them. Both come from the swoon word explained under the noun for dizziness, not from the water verb.
- 5
- 6To have, or be surrounded by, a great quantity of something.
The company swims in profits during the holiday season.
They swim in opportunities that others can only dream about.
Similarwallow
- 7A spell of dizziness or a swoon.
A swim overtook her as she rose from the chair too quickly.
He steadied himself against the wall until the swim passed.
Similarswoon
Note
A different word that happens to share the spelling. Old English swīma meant a swoon, a 'swimming in the head.' Its relatives are Swedish svimma and Danish svime, both meaning 'to faint.' None of them has anything to do with water. The same old word lies behind the verb for a giddy head.
- 8The current of events; the state of being actively involved in what is happening.
Returning from leave, he struggled to get back into the swim of office life.
She stayed in the swim by attending every meeting.
Note
This sense is heard mostly in one fixed phrase: to be in the swim, or in the swim of things, means to be part of what is going on. The picture is a current that carries you along. It pairs naturally with verbs of returning, as when Billboard in 1948 describes someone 'plunging back into the swim of business.'
- 9
- 10To be overflowed or drenched with liquid.
The cellar floors swim every time the river rises.
By the end of the match his jersey swam with sweat.
Similarflood
- 11To move about freely within a container or piece of clothing because there is more room than needed.
Like a coin sliding around in a pocket far too big for it.
His thin wrist swam inside the loose watch strap.
Small children often swim in adult life jackets that are far too big.
- 12
- 13A dance or dance move from the 1960s in which the arms imitate swimming strokes such as freestyle and breaststroke.
Like miming the front crawl in the middle of a dance floor.
The band struck up a tune and the whole floor broke into the swim.
He demonstrated the swim, sweeping his arms as though doing the breaststroke.
Note
The 1960s dance carries its article as part of its name, so you do the swim. The 1964 song 'C'mon and Swim,' by Thomas Coman and Sylvester Stewart (Sly Stone), promises that 'Bobby's goin' to show you how to do the swim.' That phrasing keeps it apart from an ordinary swim: you go for one of those, but you do the dance.
- 14To place something in water so that its lighter parts separate out and float to the surface.
Like panning for gold, where water carries off the lighter dirt and leaves the heavy metal behind.
Refiners swim the crushed ore so the lighter gangue floats clear of the metal.
The prospector swims the gravel in a pan, letting the light sand wash over the rim.
- 15To drive or guide an animal so that it moves through water under its own power.
Like a ferry guiding livestock across, except the animals do the paddling themselves.
Drovers would swim the herd across the channel at low tide.
The trainer swims the recovering racehorse in the pool each morning.
Note
Here the swimmer and the subject part company. The animal does the swimming, but the subject is whoever makes it go, such as a rider with a horse or a researcher with lab animals. This use sits comfortably in the passive, which brings out the participle: the guinea pigs 'were swum daily,' never 'were swam.' Compare crossing water by swimming, where the subject does the swimming itself.
- 16To float, staying on the surface of a liquid rather than sinking.
Like a cork bobbing on the surface, never sinking.
Set upon the pond, the little raft will swim until the wood grows waterlogged.
And he cut down a stick, and cast it in thither; and the iron did swim.
1611, The Holy Bible, King James VersionNote
Nothing paddles in this sense. Whatever swims simply stays up: in the King James Bible of 1611 'the iron did swim,' and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar calls out 'swim bark!' The use is archaic, and float has taken over its work. It survives whole in sink or swim, where swimming means not sinking rather than moving through the water.
- 17A stretch of a stream that fish frequent in large numbers.
Like a watering hole that always draws animals: but for fish in a river.
He baited the swim with maggots and waited for the bream to move in.
By dawn the best swim on the canal had been claimed by another angler.
Note
A British angler's word that names a place rather than an action. A swim is a stretch of water where fish gather, so an angler can claim a swim, bait it, or fish it. That makes it easy to tell apart from the act of swimming: you go for one of those, but you settle down at one of these.
- 18To test a suspected witch by throwing them into a river, with floating taken as proof of guilt.
Like a no-win trial where sinking meant innocence but floating meant death.
The magistrate ordered his men to swim the accused before the whole parish.
They swam her twice, and each time the river refused to take her down.
Note
A historical term, used to describe what was once done rather than anything done today. It rests on the old 'float' meaning: the accused was swum to see whether the water would hold them up, and floating counted as guilt. The verb is transitive, with the accused as its object, as in they swam her. The person being tested is therefore never the one said to swim.
- 19Abbreviation of someone who isn't me.
SWIM says the effects wore off after about an hour.
SWIM kept the dose low the first time, just to be safe.
Note
Forum posters write it in capitals and treat it as a third-person name: SWIM says, SWIM tried. It lets writers describe their own experience while nominally pinning it on an unnamed someone, which matters in drug forums, where an admission carries risk. It has no plural and takes a singular verb, even when every reader knows exactly who SWIM is.
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Practice
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Origins
From Middle English swymmen, from Old English swimman ("to swim, float"), going back to Proto-Germanic *swimmaną ("to swoon, lose consciousness, swim") and ultimately Proto-Indo-European *swem(bʰ)- ("to be unsteady, move, swim"). It is related to Dutch zwemmen, German schwimmen, and Swedish simma.
From Middle English swime ("a dizziness, swoon, trance"), from Old English swīma ("a swoon, swimming in the head"). It is related to Swedish svimma and Danish svime ("to swoon, faint").