Word.ws English Dictionary

swings and misses

swings and misses is the plural of swing and a miss.

Meaning of swing and a miss

Noun

swing and a miss (usually uncountable, plural swings and misses)

  1. (idiomatic, usually, almost always preceded by a) A sincere but unsuccessful attempt.
    • A letter arrived from then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican's enforcer of the faith, instructing him to behave as a Roman Catholic politician and vote No. . . . And, of course, Mr. Koopmans voted Yes on the legislation. . . . A swing and a miss for Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.2005 June 4, Michael Valpy, “Dutch, Belgians take gay marriage in stride”, in Globe and Mail, Canada, archived from the original on 23 Jan 2025, retrieved 11 Jan 2016

Questions about swings and misses

What is swings and misses the plural of?
Swings and misses is the plural of swing and a miss.

Words near swings and misses in the dictionary

  1. swingometric
  2. swingorilliant
  3. swingout
  4. swingouts
  5. swings
  6. swings and misses
  7. swings and roundabouts
  8. swings at anchor
  9. swings away
  10. swings both ways
  11. swings by

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swings and misses (page history and authors); swing and a miss (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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