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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

swerve.

To stray; to wander; to rove.

6 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/swɜːv/Received-Pronunciation/swɝv/General-American
  1. To stray; to wander; to rove.

    archaic
  2. To go out of a straight line; to deflect.

  3. To wander from any line prescribed, or from a rule or duty; to depart from what is established by law, duty, custom, or the like; to deviate.

  4. To bend; to incline; to give way.

  5. To climb or move upward by winding or turning.

  6. To turn aside or deviate to avoid impact.

  7. Of a projectile, to travel in a curved line

  8. To drive in the trajectory of another vehicle to stop it, to cut off.

  9. To go out of one's way to avoid; to snub.

    slang · transitive
    If I see that type o' muthafucka in the club I just swerve him.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English swerven, swarven, from Old English sweorfan (“to file; rub; polish; scour; turn aside”), from Proto-Germanic *swerbaną (“to rub off; wipe; mop”), from Proto-Indo-European *swerbʰ- (“to turn; wipe; sweep”). Cognate with West Frisian swerve (“to wander; roam; swerve”), Dutch zwerven (“to wander; stray; roam”), Low German swarven (“to swerve; wander; riot”), Swedish dialectal svärva (“to wipe”), Icelandic sverfa (“to file”).

noun/swɜːv/Received-Pronunciation/swɝv/General-American
  1. A sudden movement out of a straight line, for example to avoid a collision.

    countable · uncountable
  2. A deviation from duty or custom.

    countable · uncountable
  3. Synonym of drift (“sideways movement imparted by spin bowler”).

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English swerven, swarven, from Old English sweorfan (“to file; rub; polish; scour; turn aside”), from Proto-Germanic *swerbaną (“to rub off; wipe; mop”), from Proto-Indo-European *swerbʰ- (“to turn; wipe; sweep”). Cognate with West Frisian swerve (“to wander; roam; swerve”), Dutch zwerven (“to wander; stray; roam”), Low German swarven (“to swerve; wander; riot”), Swedish dialectal svärva (“to wipe”), Icelandic sverfa (“to file”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.