Definition
verbTo move through the water, without touching the bottom; to propel oneself in water by natural means.
verbTo become immersed in, or as if in, or flooded with, or as if with, a liquid.
Sentence Examples
Can you swim as fast as he?
You can swim, can't you?
It's too wide. We can't swim across.
Word Origin & History
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 swim”), from Proto-Indo-European *swem(bʰ)- (“to be unsteady, move, swim”).
Cognates
Cognate with North Frisian sweem, swome, swume, swumi, swumme, swääm (“to swim”), Saterland Frisian and West Frisian swimme (“to swim”), Dutch zwemmen (“to swim”), German schwimmen (“to swim”), Limburgish schwämme, zwömme (“to swim”), Low German swimmen (“to swim”), Luxembourgish schwammen (“to swim”), Vilamovian švymma, śwyma, śwymma (“to swim”), Yiddish שווימען (shvimen, “to swim”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål svømme (“to swim”), Faroese svimja (“to swim”), Norn suma (“to swim”), Norwegian Nynorsk svemja, svemje, svømma, svømme, symja, symje (“to swim”), Swedish simma (“to swim”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"We were now all upon a Level, as to our travelling; being unshipp’d, for our Bark would swim no farther, and she was too heavy to carry on our Backs […]"
— 1720, Daniel Defoe, Captain Singleton, London: J. Brotherton, page 87:
"He turned back to the scene before him and the enormous new block of council dwellings. The design was some way after Corbusier but the block was built up on plinths and resembled an Atlantic liner swimming diagonally across the site."
— 1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
"Meanwhile, NR faced an unexpected challenge when a night watchman spotted several Koi Carp swimming in floodwater close to the railway, after they had escaped from a nearby private residence. Wilson says the owner was eventually traced, and the fish were safely returned "after enjoying swimming around in a 3,000-acre lake"."
— 2020 May 20, Paul Stephen, “NR beats floods to secure tracks to Drax”, in Rail, page 59:
"A fam'd Sur-tout he wears, which once was blue, / And his foot swims in a capacious shoe."
— 1777, The Poetical Preceptor; Or, a Collection of Select Pieces of Poetry, Etc:
"Sometimes he thought to swim the stormy main."
— 1697, Virgil, “The Tenth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC: