swipe.
To grab or bat quickly.
Meaning & usage
To grab or bat quickly.
The cat swiped at the shoelace.
To strike with a strong blow in a sweeping motion.
To scan or register by sliding (a swipecard etc.) through a reader.
He swiped his card at the door.
To interact with a touch screen by drawing one's finger rapidly across it.
Swipe left to hide the toolbar.
To swipe right on (someone) on a dating application.
To steal or snatch.
Hey! Who swiped my lunch?
To drink.
Where this word comes from
From earlier swip (with a short vowel), from Middle English swippen, swype (“to move violently”), from Old English sweopian, swipian, swippan (“to scourge, strike, beat, lash”), from Proto-West Germanic *swippjan, *swipōn, *swipēn, from Proto-Germanic *swipōną, *swipjaną, *swipāną (“to move”), from Proto-Indo-European *sweyb- (“to bend, sway, swing, sweep, swerve, turn”). Cognate with German schwippen (“sway back and forth”), Danish svippe (“to smack; crack a whip”), Icelandic svipa (“riding crop, whip”). Related to sweep, swoop.
A quick grab, bat, or other motion with the hand or paw; a sweep.
A strong blow given with a sweeping motion, as with a bat or club.
An act of interacting with a touch screen by drawing the finger rapidly across it.
An act of passing a swipecard through a card reader.
A rough guess; an estimate or swag.
Take a swipe at the answer, even if you're not sure.
An attack, insult or critical remark.
The politician took a swipe at his opponents.
Poor, weak beer or other inferior alcoholic beverage; rotgut.
An instance of swiping, a kind of ellipsis. See swiping.
Where this word comes from
From earlier swip (with a short vowel), from Middle English swippen, swype (“to move violently”), from Old English sweopian, swipian, swippan (“to scourge, strike, beat, lash”), from Proto-West Germanic *swippjan, *swipōn, *swipēn, from Proto-Germanic *swipōną, *swipjaną, *swipāną (“to move”), from Proto-Indo-European *sweyb- (“to bend, sway, swing, sweep, swerve, turn”). Cognate with German schwippen (“sway back and forth”), Danish svippe (“to smack; crack a whip”), Icelandic svipa (“riding crop, whip”). Related to sweep, swoop.
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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.