Word.ws English Dictionary

swing for

swing for verb: to be punished severely.

Verb

swing for (third-person singular simple present swings for, present participle swinging for, simple past and past participle swung for)

  1. (excessive, informal) To be punished severely.
  2. To be hanged for a crime.
  3. Swing for someone: To be hanged for murdering someone.
    • I'll swing for him, when I get out. Katherine Lynch reported in “Minor Matters: Willing to "Swing for Him."”, in Weekly Mail, Cardiff, 20 June 1908, page 10

Forms of swing for

third-person singular presentswings for
present participleswinging for
past participleswung for
pastswung for

Origin of swing for

From the sense of "swing" meaning to be hung by the neck as capital punishment.

Questions about swing for

What does swing for mean?
Swing for means to be punished severely.
What part of speech is swing for?
Swing for is a verb.
What is the past tense of swing for?
The past tense of swing for is swung for.

Words near swing for in the dictionary

  1. swing dancing
  2. swing dog
  3. swing dogs
  4. swing door
  5. swing doors
  6. swing for
  7. swing for the fence
  8. swing for the fences
  9. swing gang
  10. swing gangs
  11. swing gate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swing for (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: “swing for.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/swing_for. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.