swaddle
Americanverb (used with object)
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swaddles,
present (3rd person singular)
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swaddled,
past participle, past
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swaddling
present participle
-
to bind (an infant, especially a newborn infant) with long, narrow strips of cloth to prevent free movement; wrap tightly with clothes.
-
to wrap (anything) round with bandages.
noun
verb
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to wind a bandage round
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to wrap (a baby) in swaddling clothes
-
to restrain as if by wrapping with bandages; smother
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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swaddlesimple
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swaddlessimple
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have swaddledperfect
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has swaddledperfect
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am swaddlingprogressive
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are swaddlingprogressive
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is swaddlingprogressive
-
have been swaddlingperfect progressive
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has been swaddlingperfect progressive
Past
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swaddledsimple
-
had swaddledperfect
-
was swaddlingprogressive
-
were swaddlingprogressive
-
had been swaddlingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of swaddle
1375–1425; late Middle English, in suadiling (gerund); akin by gradation to Middle English swethel (noun), Old English; see swathe 1, -le
Explanation
When you swaddle a baby, you wrap her in a blanket. Parents often swaddle a crying newborn to soothe and comfort her. You can swaddle anything, if you wrap it snugly in a cloth — a child might attempt to swaddle his kitten, or his toy truck — but the verb is used most often to describe the technique of calming a baby with a tightly wrapped blanket. The word swaddle has been in use since the 1300's, and it was probably a form of the Old English swaþian, related to the word swathe, which has a similar meaning to swaddle.
Vocabulary lists containing swaddle
The Bluest Eye
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Between Shades of Gray
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The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
She told police she had learnt how to wrap and swaddle babies on the job, and had had no formal training in how to put children down to sleep.
From BBC ● Apr. 16, 2026
“We knew absolutely nothing about child care. We needed someone to show us: This is how you change a diaper, this is how you swaddle, this is how you wash a baby’s hair,” said Zhu.
From Slate ● Jul. 13, 2024
The word “overbundle,” meaning to swaddle a newborn too tightly, appeared for the first time in The Times yesterday.
From New York Times ● Feb. 27, 2023
We swaddle ourselves in a kind of mental bubble wrap, rationalizing that such an atrocity could never happen here.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 24, 2023
She’s wearing a halter and I hold on to it, but mostly she stays still as I swab out her nostrils and swaddle her throat in flannel.
From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
Chasing down a comment on male-imposed expectations — and, more subtly, self-imposed ones — her macro lens swaddles everything in consumable lushness.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 21, 2024
The device includes a “sleep sack” that swaddles babies up to 6 months old who are not able to roll over consistently.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 21, 2023
A silk scarf swaddles her cotton white hair as she sports a random T-shirt layered with one of my late grandfather’s button-up oxfords, loosely fitting khakis and mud-caked Crocs.
From Washington Post ● May 3, 2022
Part of the appeal of Karp’s methods for calming babies was that they didn’t require anything fancy, not even the pre-made swaddles that are sold today — any old blanket would do.
From New York Times ● Apr. 18, 2018
The puke swaddles down the pillow onto the sheet—green-gray, with flecks of orange.
From "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison
I swaddled it in paper and successfully completed my introductions with a non-moist handshake.
From Salon ● Sep. 23, 2026
At a store selling harmonic healing devices, I watched a man cradle a swaddled Chihuahua within a 9-foot-tall golden pyramid structure in an attempt to heal the dog’s vertigo.
From Slate ● Sep. 22, 2026
Sloth jaws and sabertooth fangs and a truly astonishing amount of ancient vertebrae — all of it will be swaddled, catalogued and crated for the next two years.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2026
Based on those, she had thought that she had been abandoned in the street, her brother swaddled on her back with their names and ages pinned to their clothes.
From Barron's ● Jun. 4, 2026
So focused was he on getting through the day, on finally beginning his life, that he would have swaddled his lower parts in a baby’s diaper if that were required.
From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
How familiar too is the fact that his little feet have kicked free of his swaddling, revealing 10 bare toes and the underside of one foot.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 26, 2025
"I pulled him up, I was swaddling him and I walked him up the hill."
From BBC ● Jan. 19, 2024
Many people here treat their monkeys like children, swaddling them in cribs at night and dressing them in diapers — cutting a hole for their long tails to peek through.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 17, 2024
There will be many more: hands grasping river silt, long fingers against the weave of a blanket swaddling a newborn, hands clasped in youthful want.
From New York Times ● Nov. 2, 2023
I was tempted to write my story, how I had washed ashore in an old skiff, a ruined letter and a ruby ring tucked into my swaddling.
From "Beyond the Bright Sea" by Lauren Wolk
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
