Word.ws English Dictionary

swank

/ˈswæŋk/US/ˈsweɪ̯ŋk/

swank adjective: fashionably elegant, posh.

Adjective

swank (comparative swanker, superlative swankest)

  1. Fashionably elegant, posh.
    • The fish house or shack is built without windows, covered with tar paper to keep out the light and wind, and set on the ice over about ten feet of water in a spot off shore where fish have been known to habitate habitually. […] A couple of boxes to sit on and a plank or mat for your feet and a...1939 January 13, Norrie Jackson, “With the Alumni”, in The Princeton Alumni Weekly, volume XXXIX, number 13, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, pages 307, columns 1–2
    • "You live in that swank apartment round the corner."
      "Yes."
      "Hey you must be rich."1963, J P Donleavy, A Singular Man, published 1963 (USA), page 28

Noun

swank (countable and uncountable, plural swanks)

  1. A fashionably elegant person.
    • Us Morans don't like swanks, and that girl was a swank. Stuck-up rich girl. She wore a practically new gabardine with the same paper Union Jack flag as me, only hers was tucked into her coat buttonhole, behind a gold cat pasted with jewels.2007, Frances McNeil, “Sophie”, in Sisters in Fortune, Sutton, Surrey: Severn House Publishers, →ISBN; republished as Frances Brody [pseudonym; Frances McNeil], Halfpenny Dreams, London: Piatkus...
  2. Ostentation; bravado.
    • 'It is mere swank sending it to us,' said he. 'We have to be there whatever happens, as the hangman said to the murderer.'1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, When the World Screamed
    • Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat.1925, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, chapter 1, in The Great Gatsby, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1953, →ISBN, page 7

Verb

swank (third-person singular simple present swanks, present participle swanking, simple past and past participle swanked)

  1. To swagger, to show off.
    • Looks like she's going to swank in, flashing her diamonds, then swank out to another party.
    • He was still an old galliard, with white Buffalo Bill vandyke, and he swanked around, still healthy of flesh, in white suits, looking things over with big sex-amused eyes.1953 September 18, Saul Bellow, chapter V, in The Adventures of Augie March […], New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press, →OCLC

Proper noun capitalized: Swank

Swank (plural Swanks)

  1. A surname.

swank meaning in Urdu

swank in Urdu

جست و خیز کن, تیز, خودنمائی, بننا, خودنمائی کرنا

Examples of swank in a sentence

  • You know it's swank when … It's very shiny / It's very tan / It's got Royale in its name1995 December 18, Alexandra Lange, “Now That’s Swanky: Eurotrash, Caviar, Shiny Mega-baubles, and Super-glitzy Weddings—the Gold-plated Set...
  • Heinz belonged to a very swank club in Pittsburgh.2009, Alan Reed, Ben Ohmart, Yabba Dabba Doo!: The Alan Reed Story, page 64:
  • She arrived at a very swank studio, where Mr.2010, Maximus Tonelli, The Pilot and the Actress, page 77:
  • As we were enjoying this lovely meal, a very swank and sophisticated older woman came over to our table and excused herself, more so to Jerry than me.2010, Shirley Butts Wilson, Light in the Darkest Hours:

Synonyms of swank

19 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of swank

Forms of swank

Adjective
comparativeswanker
superlativeswankest
Noun
pluralswanks
Verb
third-person singular presentswanks
present participleswanking
past participleswanked
pastswanked
Proper noun
pluralSwanks

Origin of swank

From dialectal swank (“to strut, behave ostentatiously”), perhaps from an unrecorded Old English root, derived from Proto-Germanic *swankijaną (“to cause to sway, swing”) or from Proto-Germanic *swankaz (“lithe, bendsome, slender”), related to the Scots swank and the Middle High German swanken, modern German schwanken (“to sway”).

Words formed from swank

Words that rhyme with swank

34 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about swank

What does swank mean?
Swank means fashionably elegant, posh.
What is swank in Urdu?
Swank in Urdu is جست و خیز کن, تیز, خودنمائی. See Swank meaning in Urdu.
How do you use swank in a sentence?
You know it's swank when … It's very shiny / It's very tan / It's got Royale in its name
What part of speech is swank?
Swank can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce swank?
Swank is pronounced /ˈswæŋk/.

Words near swank in the dictionary

  1. swanhood
  2. Swanigan
  3. Swanigans
  4. swanimote
  5. swanimotes
  6. swank
  7. swanked
  8. swanker
  9. swankers
  10. swankest
  11. swankey

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swank (page history and authors); Swank (page history and authors); swank (Urdu Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-swank.ogg.

Cite this entry: “swank.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/swank. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.