Word.ws English Dictionary

swings and roundabouts

swings and roundabouts noun: gains and losses that offset each other.

Noun

swings and roundabouts pl (plural only)

  1. (Australia, Ireland, UK, plural, plural-only) Gains and losses that offset each other.
    • If, in order to save money, you never buy a parking ticket, you are more likely to get fined, so it's all swings and roundabouts really.
    • Whether we pick up Mary first and then John or John first and then Mary is a matter of swings and roundabouts.

Questions about swings and roundabouts

What does swings and roundabouts mean?
Swings and roundabouts means gains and losses that offset each other.
What part of speech is swings and roundabouts?
Swings and roundabouts is a noun.

Words near swings and roundabouts in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swings and roundabouts (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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