Word.ws English Dictionary

swipe file

swipe file noun: a collection of documents or templates (e.g. successful designs or marketing materials) used for future inspiration by creative professionals (cartoonists, graphic designers, copywriters, etc.).

Noun

swipe file (plural swipe files)

  1. A collection of documents or templates (e.g. successful designs or marketing materials) used for future inspiration by creative professionals (cartoonists, graphic designers, copywriters, etc.).
    • It’s well known among artists, art historians and just us plain ol’ comic fans that good ideas get borrowed from time to time. Most comic book artists keep a “swipe file,” clippings of people or fashions, cars, animals… whatever figure or thing a story might call for.2010, Mike Howlett, “The Sincerest Form of Flattery”, in The Weird World of Eerie Publications: Comic Gore That Warped Millions of Young Minds, Port Townsend, WA: Feral House, →ISBN, page 14

Forms of swipe file

pluralswipe files

Questions about swipe file

What does swipe file mean?
Swipe file means a collection of documents or templates (e.g. successful designs or marketing materials) used for future inspiration by creative professionals (cartoonists, graphic designers, copywriters, etc.).
What part of speech is swipe file?
Swipe file is a noun.
What is the plural of swipe file?
The plural of swipe file is swipe files.

Words near swipe file in the dictionary

  1. swip
  2. swipable
  3. swipe
  4. swipe card
  5. swipe cards
  6. swipe file
  7. swipe files
  8. swipe left
  9. swipe right
  10. swipe-tab
  11. swipeable

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swipe file (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: “swipe file.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/swipe_file. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.