Word.ws English Dictionary

swing the lead

swing the lead verb: to avoid work, especially by pretending to be ill; to shirk, to malinger.

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) To avoid work, especially by pretending to be ill; to shirk, to malinger.
    • Though he was by no means inclined to help carry a gas-cylinder on a pole, while watching the working party fall in on the road that night, Bourne felt rather out of it; he felt as though he were swinging the lead.1929, Frederic Manning, The Middle Parts of Fortune, Vintage, published 2014, page 93
    • I said, ‘Well, how d'you like having to do some work for a change, instead of swinging the lead at Fort Hommet?’1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York, published 2007, page 129

Forms of swing the lead

third-person singular presentswings the lead
present participleswinging the lead
past participleswung the lead
pastswung the lead

Questions about swing the lead

What does swing the lead mean?
Swing the lead means to avoid work, especially by pretending to be ill; to shirk, to malinger.
What part of speech is swing the lead?
Swing the lead is a verb.
What is the past tense of swing the lead?
The past tense of swing the lead is swung the lead.

Words near swing the lead in the dictionary

  1. swing table
  2. swing tables
  3. swing tag
  4. swing tags
  5. swing that way
  6. swing the lead
  7. swing through
  8. swing tool
  9. swing tools
  10. swing trade
  11. swing traded

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swing the lead (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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