Word.ws English Dictionary

swear at

swear at verb: to be disagreeably incongruous with, especially in colour; to clash.

Verb

swear at (third-person singular simple present swears at, present participle swearing at, simple past swore at, past participle sworn at)

  1. (colloquial, dated, transitive) To be disagreeably incongruous with, especially in colour; to clash.
    • […] in several instances there was another and quite a different red in the gown, which “swore” at its relative on the parasol.1885, Truth, volume 18, page 109
    • Coal-scuttle poke-bonnets, short and scanty skirts, huge splay feet arrayed in indescribable shoes and boots, colours which swore at each other - these were the outward and visible signs of the British fair of that day.1978, Fanny Kemble, Eleanor Ransome, The Terrific Kemble: A Victorian Self-Portrait
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see swear, at.
    • One protester was arrested after swearing at a police officer.

Forms of swear at

third-person singular presentswears at
present participleswearing at
pastswore at
past participlesworn at

Questions about swear at

What does swear at mean?
Swear at means to be disagreeably incongruous with, especially in colour; to clash.
What part of speech is swear at?
Swear at is a verb.
What is the past tense of swear at?
The past tense of swear at is swore at.

Words near swear at in the dictionary

  1. sweamish
  2. sweams
  3. Sweany
  4. Sweanys
  5. swear
  6. swear at
  7. swear blind
  8. swear box
  9. swear boxes
  10. swear by
  11. swear down

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swear at (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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