Swimming

//ˈswɪmɪŋ// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act or art of sustaining and propelling the body in water. countable, uncountable

    "Triathlon competitors take part in open water swimming."

  2. 2
    The state of being dizzy or in vertigo. countable, uncountable

    "Then I take my pipe of Tabacco, sitting close by a warme fire, the space of halfe an houre and more, vntill the giddinesse and swimming in my head be past, and the medicine also haue done it feate : then I vse to gargle my mouth with a cuppe of beere, well warmed with a toste."

  3. 3
    the act of swimming wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of swim form-of, gerund, participle, present
Adjective
  1. 1
    applied to a fish depicted horizontally wordnet
  2. 2
    filled or brimming with tears wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
acrobaticsagonisticsaquaplaningaquaticaquaticsassociation football

Example

More examples

"Have you ever seen him swimming?"

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English swymmynge. Equivalent to swim (“to move through water”, verb) + -ing (suffix forming gerunds).

Etymology 2

From swim (“to be dizzy”, verb) + -ing (suffix forming gerunds).

Etymology 3

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Related phrases

back strokebathing suitsbuoy upfish movingfreestyle backstrokemove waterswimming bathswimming capswimming poolsynchronised swimmingtwo mswater activity

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.