swim

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   be dizzy or giddy

   my brain is swimming after the bottle of champagne

2. 2
   noun

   the act of swimming

   it was the swimming they enjoyed most: they took a short swim in the pool

3. 3
   verb

   move as if gliding through water

   this snake swims through the soil where it lives

4. 4
   verb

   travel through water

   We had to swim for 20 minutes to reach the shore

5. 5
   verb

   be covered with or submerged in a liquid

   the meat was swimming in a fatty gravy

6. 6
   verb

   To move through the water, without touching the bottom; to propel oneself in water by natural means.

   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 […]

7. 7
   verb

   To become immersed in, or as if in, or flooded with, or as if with, a liquid.

   swimming in self-pity

8. 8
   verb

   To move around freely because of excess space.

   A fam'd Sur-tout he wears, which once was blue, / And his foot swims in a capacious shoe.

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 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”)…