swipe

[swahyp]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR swipe ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

a strong, sweeping blow, as with a cricket bat or golf club.

Informal. a swing of the arm in order to strike somebody; punch.

a sideswipe.

Informal. a critical or cutting remark.

a leverlike device for raising or lowering a weight, especially a bucket in a well; sweep.

an act or instance of swiping: You can debit your checking account with just a swipe of your card.

Also called rub·ber. Horse Racing. a person who rubs down horses in a stable; groom.

verb (used with object), swiped, swip·ing.

to strike with a sweeping blow.

Informal. to steal: He'll swipe anything that isn't nailed down.

to slide (a magnetic card) quickly through an electronic device that reads data.

Digital Technology. to move a finger or fingers, or a stylus, across an area on (a touchscreen) in order to execute a command: Put your finger on the arrow and swipe the screen to the right to unlock your phone.

verb (used without object), swiped, swip·ing.

to make a sweeping stroke.

to slide a magnetic card through an electronic device.

Digital Technology. to move the fingers across a touchscreen: Swipe to the right to close the article.

Origin of swipe

1730–40; akin to sweep¹; cognate with German schweifen

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for swipe

slap, pilfer, sneak, blow, knock, lick, clip, sock, clout, swat, smack, cuff, rap, wallop, strike, clump, wipe, bash, nab, cop

Examples from the Web for swipe

Contemporary Examples of swipe

Swipe, pass judgment, see who likes you and see if anyone likes you back.
Swipe Right For Sex: Mixxxer Is Tinder for the Porn Star Set
Aurora Snow
October 4, 2014
We are going through and looking for people that we would honestly ‘swipe right’ for.
Grindr and Tinder Help the Holy Land Make Love, Not War
Gideon Resnick
July 23, 2014
“One swipe with a crowbar and he would have been down,” Sasha said.
I Heard About the Latest Crazed Shooter While I Watched the World Cup with Guys He Almost Killed
Daniel Genis
July 1, 2014
Flawless skin, perfect hair, and bright white teeth are all just a swipe away.
New App, SkinneePix, Promises to Shave 15 Pounds Off Your Selfies
Charlotte Lytton
April 7, 2014
The crook then produces a MetroCard of his own and offers to swipe the would-be traveler through—for a premium price.
My Patrol With the NYPD’s Bill Bratton
Michael Daly
March 14, 2014

Historical Examples of swipe

And if you don't cough up a thousand and let me go, I'll swipe anything in sight.
Shorty McCabe
Sewell Ford
Not that I swipe the whiskey, just sorry because I gets sick!
Slave Narratives, Oklahoma
Various
He goes to make a swipe at figure on other side of stairs—sees Rusty.
The Ghost Breaker
Paul Dickey
The swipe I took at him should have swept him over, but he got his coils around me.
Vigorish
Gordon Randall Garrett
Still, how was he to know they were going to swipe his idea?
Carl and the Cotton Gin
Sara Ware Bassett

British Dictionary definitions for swipe

swipe

verb

(when intr, usually foll by at) informal to hit hard with a sweeping blow

(tr) slang to steal

(tr) to pass a machine-readable card, such as a credit card, debit card, etc, through a machine that electronically interprets the information encoded, usu. in a magnetic strip, on the card

noun

informal a hard blow

an unexpected criticism of someone or something while discussing another subject

Also called: sweep a type of lever for raising and lowering a weight, such as a bucket in a well

Word Origin for swipe

C19: perhaps related to sweep

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for swipe

1807, "a driving stroke made with the arms in full swing," perhaps a dialectal variant of sweep (n.), or in part from obsolete swip "a stroke, blow" (c.1200), from Proto-Germanic *swip-, related to Old English swipu "a stick, whip." Other possible sources or influences are Middle English swope "to sweep with broad movements" (in reference to brooms, swords, etc.), from Old English swapan; obsolete swaip "stroke, blow;" or obsolete swape "oar, pole."

1825, from swipe (v.). The slang sense of "steal, pilfer" appeared 1885, American English; earliest use in prison jargon:

The blokes in the next cell, little Charley Ames and the Sheeney Kid, they was hot to try it, and swiped enough shoe-lining out of shop No. 5, where they worked, to make us all breeches to the stripes. ["Lippincott's Magazine," vol. 35, June 1885]

Meaning "run a credit card" is 1990s. Related: Swiped; swiper; swiping.