Word.ws English Dictionary

swimming upstream

swimming upstream is the present participle and gerund of swim upstream.

Meaning of swim upstream

Verb

swim upstream (third-person singular simple present swims upstream, present participle swimming upstream, simple past swam upstream, past participle swum upstream)

  1. (idiomatic) To opt for a difficult course of action when a simpler or safer alternative is available; to make an unwise decision against sound advice.
    • I told my daughter to get her hair dyed at a salon, but she had to swim upstream and do it herself. Now it's a mess.
    Synonyms:
    do something the hard way

Questions about swimming upstream

What is swimming upstream the present participle and gerund of?
Swimming upstream is the present participle and gerund of swim upstream.

Words near swimming upstream in the dictionary

  1. swimming stone
  2. swimming stones
  3. swimming the Thames
  4. swimming the Tiber
  5. swimming trunks
  6. swimming upstream
  7. swimming with sharks
  8. swimming-pool
  9. swimming-pools
  10. swimmingly
  11. swimmingness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swimming upstream (page history and authors); swim upstream (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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Cite this entry: “swimming upstream.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/swimming_upstream. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.