swim

1. 1.

   travel through water

   “We had to swim for 20 minutes to reach the shore”

   “a big fish was swimming in the tank”

   Broadertravel

   Narrowerbatheschoolfinpaddlecrawlbreaststrokebackstrokedive
2. 2.

   be afloat either on or below a liquid surface and not sink to the bottom

   Synonymsfloat

   Broadertravel

   Narrowerbuoy
3. 3.

   be dizzy or giddy

   “my brain is swimming after the bottle of champagne”

   Broaderbe
4. 4.

   be covered with or submerged in a liquid

   “the meat was swimming in a fatty gravy”

   Synonymsdrown

   Broaderbe
5. 5.

   move as if gliding through water

   “this snake swims through the soil where it lives”

   Broadertravel

1. 1.

   the act of swimming

   “it was the swimming they enjoyed most”

   “they took a short swim in the pool”

   Synonymsswimming

   Broaderwater sport

   Narrowerbatheskinny-dipdipdivefloatingskin diving

Other forms of swim

plural

swims·

past tense or participle

swam

past tense or participle

swum

present participle

swimming

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about swim

What does swim mean?

swim means "travel through water". That is the primary sense; the word has 6 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in swim?

swim has 1 syllable: swim. In IPA it is /ˈswɪm/.

What is another word for swim?

Close synonyms include float, drown, swimming. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is swim a common word?

swim is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.