Word.ws English Dictionary

swaip

swaip verb: to walk proudly; to sweep along.

Verb

swaip (third-person singular simple present swaips, present participle swaiping, simple past and past participle swaiped)

  1. (UK, dialectal, obsolete) To walk proudly; to sweep along.
    • Och, for his swaiping! That was a lucky job for him, —the ill-favored, foul-mouthed blackguard, heretic and villain thief!1842, Anthony Ganilh, Ambrosio de Letinez, page 143
    • But Ayas swaiped aside among the crowd, Aflush with hate and burning discontent: And many murmured at him: for, said they, “Hamil at least doth surely mean us well!“1883, Welbore St. Clair Baddeley, Bedoueen Legends: And Other Poems, page 40

Forms of swaip

third-person singular presentswaips
present participleswaiping
past participleswaiped
pastswaiped

Origin of swaip

From Middle English swaipen (“to strike, scourge”), from Old Norse sveipa (“to sweep, stroke”) and/or Old English swāpan (“to sweep”); both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *swaipaną (“to sweep, swing, hurl, fling”). Doublet of swoop.

Questions about swaip

What does swaip mean?
Swaip means to walk proudly; to sweep along.
What part of speech is swaip?
Swaip is a verb.
What is the past tense of swaip?
The past tense of swaip is swaiped.

Words near swaip in the dictionary

  1. swainsonine
  2. Swainsonpea
  3. Swainsthorpe
  4. Swainston
  5. Swainstons
  6. swaip
  7. swaiped
  8. swaiping
  9. swaips
  10. SWAK
  11. swaknoite

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swaip (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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