The poor man had not swum so far for many years, and was nearly spent.
Had I swum another yard, I should have passed the boat, and missed her altogether!
Had it been a matter of my life only, I would have swum to meet him.
She brought them up the river; and then they were dumped into the water, and swum ashore.
He swum ashore to the beach and, inside of a week, he'd shipped aboard the Emily.
Old Whetstone was as wet at the end of ten minutes as if he had swum a river.
There came a moment when it seemed to him that he must have swum beyond the confines of life.
How many times, surrounded by his friends, he had swum in the moonlight.
Spokes was there, for Spokes had swum round the Black Buoy, and become a “shark.”
He had learnt their sports and games; wrestled and swum and hunted with them.
Old English swimman "to move in or on the water, float" (class III strong verb; past tense swamm, past participle swummen), from Proto-Germanic *swemjanan (cf. Old Saxon and Old High German swimman, Old Norse svimma, Dutch zwemmen, German schwimmen), from PIE root *swem- "to be in motion."
The root is sometimes said to be restricted to Germanic, but possible cognates are Welsh chwyf "motion," Old Irish do-sennaim "I hunt," Lithuanian sundyti "to chase." For the usual Indo-European word, see natatorium. Sense of "reel or move unsteadily" first recorded 1670s; of the head or brain, from 1702. Figurative phrase sink or swim is attested from mid-15c., often with reference to ordeals of suspected witches.
1540s, "the clear part of any liquid" (above the sediment), from swim (v.). Meaning "part of a river or stream frequented by fish" (and hence fishermen) is from 1828, and is probably the source of the figurative meaning "the current of the latest affairs or events" (1869).
verb
To perform well; succeed; fly: I didn't think the Harptones quite swam last time I saw them
[1970s+; perhaps fr sink or swim]
