How to use swipe in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb, noun

Swipe means to grab or bat quickly. Example: “The cat swiped at the shoelace.”

Examples of swipe by meaning

verbTo grab or bat quickly.

The cat swiped at the shoelace.

verbTo scan or register by sliding (a swipecard etc.) through a reader.

He swiped his card at the door.

verbTo interact with a touch screen by drawing one's finger rapidly across it.

Swipe left to hide the toolbar.
To unlock your phone, swipe the slider from left to right.2008, Erica Sadun, Taking Your iPhone to the Max, Apress, →ISBN, page 27
But really, she is just over it all: the swiping, the monotonous getting-to-know-you conversations and the self-doubt that creeps in when one of her matches fizzles.2022 August 31, Catherine Pearson, “‘A Decade of Fruitless Searching’: The Toll of Dating App Burnout”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

verbTo swipe right on (someone) on a dating application.

Joking, he said, “Amazingly, when I signed up for Tinder, nobody swiped me!2016 August 2, Lindsay Kimble, “Zac Efron Opens Up About His Dating Woes and Jokes: 'When I Signed Up for Tinder, Nobody Swiped Me!'”, in...

verbTo steal or snatch.

Hey! Who swiped my lunch?
Maybe I could swipe some Tintex from the five-and-dime.1968, Thomas C. Ryan, 00:48:18 from the start, in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

nounAn act of interacting with a touch screen by drawing the finger rapidly across it.

Some New Yorkers are moving beyond the swipe to venture into flirtatious panel discussions and speed dating sessions.2020 April 18, Alyson Krueger, “Virtual Dating Is the New Normal. Will It Work?”, in The New Yorker

nounAn act of passing a swipecard through a card reader.

Owning a car in New York City is seen as a liability by many, especially when a quick Uber ride or the swipe of a MetroCard can easily get you where you need to go.2020 March 13, Ronnie Koenig, “Parking So Prime, the Car Is Optional”, in The New Yorker

nounA rough guess; an estimate or swag.

Take a swipe at the answer, even if you're not sure.

More sentences with swipe

The surgeon lased the elongated soft palate, cutting off the excess tissue and stopping the blood flow in one swipe.From the entry lase
He had been visiting an area zoo when a monkey swung from its tree perch, swiped his glasses and hurled them into a hippo hole.From the entry monkey
Famously, Tinder gamified the search for love, introducing that addictive swipe feature to its target audience: millennials.2025 May 10, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, “‘The Interview’: Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN…. From the entry gamify
Swipe left for vehicle settings and right for more intense infotainment settings.2021 February 28, Scott Sturgis, “The 2021 Volvo V90 is so close to perfect”, in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, volume 94, number 220, page F-4. From the entry lagginess
Who'd have thought that Julia Roberts would take a career-damaging swipe at her own government.2004, Martin Rowson, And Another Thing...: The Book of Rants, page 2. From the entry tubthump
The latest example of this is an unmotivated, digressive swipe at the Violet Quill (VQ) in T.R.1987 April 25, Felice Picano, “The Truth About "Violet Quill"”, in Gay Community News, page 4. From the entry digressive
The former president’s son Donald Jr. swiped at Ms.2022 December 9, Jonathan Weisman, Ken Bensinger, quoting Donald Trump Jr., “Blowback Over Griner’s Release Exposes Depth of America’s…. From the entry dei
But new germaphobia finally pushed more of us to try the contact-free phone payments as opposed to a card swipe.2021 January 6, Brian X. Chen, “The Tech That Will Invade Our Lives in 2021”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry germaphobia
She could get to them before they got their swords, and she could swipe their gold and their meal.2017 July 16, Brandon Nowalk, “Chickens and dragons come home to roost on Game Of Thrones (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club. From the entry cold-blooded
She felt dizzy and befuddled, almost like the time she had swiped a drink of her mother's homebrewed mead.2015, Tamora Pierce, Wild Magic, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 39. From the entry homebrewed
I swiped it and completed my purchase.2015, Jason Vines, “Stupid Policies”, in Jimmy Hoffa Called My Mom a Bitch! Profiles in Stupidity, Grapevine, Tex.: Waldorf Publishing…. From the entry self-check-out
When the ball bounced, the open stance was a good preliminary position from which to play the cross-batted swipe or lappa.2010, Mukul Kesavan, Keshwani Mukul, Men in White, page 12. From the entry lappa
She'd hop around, resniff the smell from different angles, then take a tentative swipe at it, upending a dollop of turf.2010, Alexandra Horowitz, Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know, →ISBN. From the entry resniff
I was almost done when that vixen swiped it!'2002 June 2, WayForward, Shantae, Game Boy Color, level/area: Mimic's Dock. From the entry vixen
I swiped it from the old lady's liquor cabinet.1985, Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale, Back to the Future, spoken by Lorraine Baines (Lea Thompson). From the entry old lady
I surreptiously scotchtape a piece of fuzz swiped from the office aspirin bottle to the seat of my pants.1985, Carol Morris, Ironing Scott's Zen Suit, page 67. From the entry scotchtape
King Hygelac of the Geats had been struck down by one might swipe of the foemen, the Frisians.1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 41. From the entry Frisian
As the lawsuit claims, we’re being programmed to constantly seek a dopamine hit from each swipe in what it calls a “pay-to-play” loop.2024 March 14, Georgina Lawton, “I’m not surprised people are suing a dating app company – our addiction to swiping makes us miserable”…. From the entry pay-to-play
After cruising up to six snaps, Tinderites must choose whether to swipe right for ‘yes’, and strike up a conversation, or swipe left for ‘no’.2017 July 26, “How Tinder grew up”, in Irish Independent, page 34. From the entry Tinderite
This cake is an ode to York Peppermint Patties, Andes Mints (swiped from your grandmother’s candy bowl), and mint–chocolate chip ice cream.2015, Jean Sagendorph, Jessie Sheehan, Icebox Cakes: Recipes for the Coolest Cakes in Town, San Francisco, Calif.: Chronicle Books, →ISBN…. From the entry mint chocolate chip
The defence minister, Kevin Andrews, issued a veiled swipe at China during a speech to an Asia Pacific security summit in Singapore on Sunday.2015 May 31, Australian Associated Press, “South China Sea dispute: Australia says countries must sign code of conduct”, in The Guardian…. From the entry Asia Pacific
“At first everyone was standoffish and now they're too friendly,” Thorgil complained, swiping at a merlad who was attempting to grab her hair.2009, Nancy Farmer, The Islands of the Blessed, Simon & Schuster, published 2009, →ISBN. From the entry merlad
I'm acutely aware that this lovely blond beast, if properly provoked, could rip my lungs out with a single swipe of clawsome paw.1997, David Petersen, The Nearby Faraway. From the entry clawsome
I foofed my hair and buzzed the door open, swiping cat hairs from my chest so that I wouldn't leave a tacky hug imprint.1995, Dorian Yeager, Eviction by Death, page 123. From the entry foof
“I'll bet he was swiping things as a small boy.” “Only biscuits.” “I beg your pardon?” “Or crackers you would call them, wouldn't you?1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XX, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC. From the entry salad days
The caps, peaky-blinders, were used in fighting to be whipped off the head and swiped across the opponent's eyes, momentarily blinding them or slashing the cheeks.2019, Carl Chinn, Peaky Blinders - The Real Story of Birmingham's most notorious gangs.. From the entry peaky blinder
“Anyway," she said, taking a deep breath and swiping a palm across her cheeks to remove the lingering moisture, "at the end of the day, I destroyed it.2017, Deb Kastner, Texas Christmas Twins, →ISBN. From the entry black thumb
Its 20-page portfolio of stills from the music-video director Mark Romanek functions as a virtual swipe book of contemporary style idioms: cowboys, aliens, vatos, Janet Jackson and Madonna.1998 February 22, Guy Trebay, “Uprising the Indie”, in The New York Times Magazine. From the entry vato
"I'm really grateful to you for being nice to her." "De nada," he answered with a small bow and a quick swipe to her behind as she passed.1996, Ellen Feldmen, Rearview mirror, link. From the entry de nada

Meaning of swipe

verb To grab or bat quickly.
verb To strike with a strong blow in a sweeping motion.
verb To scan or register by sliding (a swipecard etc.) through a reader.

Full definition of swipe

Questions about swipe in a sentence

How do you use swipe in a sentence?: Swipe is used as a verb and noun. For example: “The cat swiped at the shoelace.”
What is a short sentence with swipe?: “Hey! Who swiped my lunch?”
What does swipe mean?: Swipe means to grab or bat quickly.

Adapted from Wiktionary: swipe (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use swipe in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/swipe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.