to swim
9
1.0
- verb
- /swɪm/
- No, I mean, you're swimming as fast as you can to stay afloat.
Examples
-
If you live in Louisiana and don't know how to swim, now might be a good time to learn.
Academic text (2007) -
And once you're able to get your feet wet, you're able to swim in the pool.
-
- If something happens to the boat... - I swim back.
-
No one swam across or took a boat.
-
I am an Englishman; I swim in the North Sea; I like cold water.
Fiction book (1995) -
And then I dove into the ocean and I swam with the dolphins.
-
The attackers cannot swim.
-
The earplugs were removed after the patient swam underwater and the canal was visually checked for water.
Academic text (1995) -
He swims with his pet alligator or crocodile.
-
She learned to swim when she was five years old and now enjoys it every summer.
Synonyms
559
1.0
To stay or move on water without sinking, sometimes in the air
37
1.4
To swim for pleasure in the sea or pool
33
2.5
To play or move in shallow water by splashing
9
2.8
To go into the water for a short time to swim or cool off
1
3.9
To swim using the stroke where you move one arm at a time and kick
Antonyms
Idioms
Phrasal Verbs
- Informal
7
5.3
To move against a river current or to keep trying when many people are against you
Compounds
- Specialized
1
5.0
An air sac in many fish that helps them stay at a certain depth in water
How Buoyant
Surface Forms
Etymology
Swim originally meant moving in or on water, and from this image it also came to mean 'to float', so if something 'swims' on the surface it stays up and does not sink.