to perform a swan dive.
to decrease suddenly and decisively; plummet.
Stock prices swan-dived overnight.
An Americanism dating back to 1895–1900
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
After realizing that the status quo can be as perilous as a swan dive into the unknown, she bet on herself and made the leap.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 7, 2026
Less fortunately, the table leg made it difficult for me to wheel my chair under it, meaning I had to do a Tom Daley-style swan dive every time I reached for my drink.
From BBC ● Aug. 2, 2025
The conditions prompted Diaz to do a swan dive and others to make snow angels, and left maintenance crews at Coors Field hoisting shovels full of hail and working to restore order to the field.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 29, 2023
Regardless of genre, Hibbert’s raspy, soaring baritone could lift to a tenor, then to falsetto and swan dive back down, all across the course of a few choice lines.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 12, 2020
I wanted to take my arms off the trunk and fold them to my chest like a mummy, loosen my thighs from their grip, and fall in a backwards swan dive to the bottom.
From "The Marrow Thieves" by Cherie Dimaline
Russell and Dunn then punched holes through the Sharks defence and Redpath's one-handed over the top pass saw Cokanasiga swan-dive over the try-line.
From BBC ● Mar. 24, 2024
Interpretation is a swan-dive into an ocean of possibilities, all of them entrancingly plausible, and none quite reconcilable.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 10, 2017
Downey is surely in too-elevated a position to make the same swan-dive from grace that he did before.
From The Guardian ● May 29, 2014
Line: 49ers by 3 Kevin Kolb’s swan-dive from heir apparent to last resort was so swift that the g-forces made his cheeks ripple.
From New York Times ● Oct. 8, 2010
Opening the head-gate, he poised sharply upon its extremity and took off in a perfect swan-dive; floating unconcernedly down toward that boiling maelstrom two hundred feel below.
From Spacehounds of IPC by Smith, E. E. (Edward Elmer)
Rees-Zammit tucked an underarm pass to captain Ludlow, who soaked up the roar from The Shed as he swan-dived over for his first try of the season.
From BBC ● Oct. 28, 2022
These are products that swan-dived from the highest board; failures so legendary they have their own appendix in business-school textbooks.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 19, 2017
With the world momentarily pumping more oil than it can use, the cost of a barrel has swan-dived below $70.
From Slate ● Dec. 5, 2014
Earlier this month, while Cinco de Mayo revelers were swan-diving into pitchers of margaritas, a few dozen diners gathered in Brooklyn, N.Y., to celebrate a more wholesome annual rite: the arrival of ramp season.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 13, 2026
Solving for why doesn't mean magically finding that ikigai center and swan-diving right into it.
From Fox News ● Jan. 25, 2022
But in the next scene, Carey slips out of her bonds and leaps from a balcony, swan-diving into a pool below.
From Time Magazine Archive
After a while, even standing upright was taking too much effort, and I had to brace myself against the table to keep from swan-diving straight into it.
From "The Darkest Minds" by Alexandra Bracken
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.
