- present participle of swim.
swimming
Americannoun
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the act of a person or thing that swims.
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the skill or technique of a person who swims.
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the sport of swimming.
adjective
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pertaining to, characterized by, or capable of swimming.
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used in or for swimming.
swimming trunks.
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immersed in or overflowing with water or some other liquid.
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dizzy or giddy.
a swimming head.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of swimming
First recorded before 1000; Middle English; Old English swimmende (adjective). See swim, -ing 2, -ing 1
Explanation
Swimming is an activity that involves moving through the water using your arms and legs. One of the best ways to cool off on a hot summer day is swimming in a cold lake or pool. Swimming is both a casual activity and a serious sport. To you, swimming may involve splashing through the waves or dog-paddling across a public pool. Olympic athletes, on the other hand, swim distances as far as 1500 meters at unbelievable speeds. As an adjective, swimming describes anything that swims or that's used for swimming, like a swimming hole. You can also poetically describe a crying person's eyes as "swimming with tears."
Vocabulary lists containing swimming
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.
A baited camera mounted on a bottom lander captured rare footage of another goblin shark swimming freely in its natural environment.
From Science Daily • Jul. 8, 2026
Zhou said that "even by swimming, people can't spot them."
From BBC • Jul. 8, 2026
Welcome to the strange world of cold-water swimming, in which the perfect body is nothing like what you’ll see in an Athleta catalog.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jul. 6, 2026
The city has transformed hundreds of public buildings into cooling centers, dispatched volunteers to check on vulnerable citizens, and extended the hours of swimming pools across the city.
From Barron's • Jul. 3, 2026
I woke up swimming all over the bed.
From "Summer of the Monkeys" by Wilson Rawls
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.
