swims

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of swim.

   The champion swims the final lap faster than anyone else in the heat.

   Whenever the water is calm, he swims out to the buoy and back.

   Note

   The form that goes with he, she, it or a singular noun, and it carries every use of the verb. It works without an object (she swims every morning) and with one, naming a distance or body of water, a stroke, or an event (he swims the butterfly, she swims the 400). It also describes things drowned in liquid, as when a plate swims in gravy.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of swim.

   Several short swims throughout the week kept her shoulders strong.

   The coach scheduled three timed swims before the championship.

   Note

   Most often the count noun for separate outings in the water: two swims a day, a few timed swims. Anglers in the UK also use swims for stretches of a stream where fish gather, so one river can offer several good swims. The figurative swim of things, the flow of events a person is caught up in, stays singular in that phrase and does not make this plural.

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