swish

Adjective

swish (comparative swisher or more swish, superlative swishest or most swish)

1. (UK, colloquial) sophisticated; fashionable; smooth.
   • This restaurant looks very swish — it even has linen tablecloths.
   • All the shabby railway buildings in front of the station concourse have either been removed or transformed into a shopping complex and swish homes.2020 June 3, Howard Johnston, “Regional News: Cambridge”, in Rail, page 23
2. Attractive, stylish
   • When the boys go swish, they always score2004, “Ladyflash”, in Thunder, Lightning, Strike, performed by The Go! Team
   • The Saints, who started the day third in the table, went marching on thanks to their own swish play and some staggering defending by the visitors.2014 October 18, Paul Doyle, “Southampton hammer eight past hapless Sunderland in barmy encounter”, in The Guardian
3. Effeminate.

Noun

swish (countable and uncountable, plural swishes)

1. A short rustling, hissing or whistling sound, often made by friction.
2. A hissing, sweeping movement through the air, as of an animal's tail.
   • As she trotted down the white path, each swish of her tail sent petals dancing through the air, falling where the bride would walk.2011, A. C. August, The Highway Cross, page 116
3. A sound of liquid flowing, especially inside a container.
   • There were four or five men in the vault already, and I could hear more coming down the passage, and guessed from their heavy footsteps that they were carrying burdens. There was a sound, too, of dumping kegs down on the ground, with a swish of liquor inside them, and then the noise of casks being...[1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC
4. A twig or bundle of twigs, used for administering beatings; a switch
5. A successful basketball shot that does not touch the rim or backboard.
6. A rapid or careless attacking stroke by the batter.
7. (slang) An effeminate male homosexual.
   • "Fairies, nances, swishes, fags, lezzes — call 'em what you please — should of course be permitted to earn honest livings […]1992, Leigh W. Rutledge, The gay decades: from Stonewall to the present
8. (slang, uncountable) Effeminacy, effeminate or homosexual demeanor.
   • He got a little swish downriver.
9. (Canada, slang, uncountable) An improvised alcoholic drink made by fermenting whatever ingredients are available.

Verb

swish (third-person singular simple present swishes, present participle swishing, simple past and past participle swished)

1. To make a rustling sound while moving.
   • The cane swishes.
   • In the stern of the low-laden canoe his paddle swished steadily and powerfully, with thrust of straight, stiff upper arm backed by a twisting swing of the body from the waist, and with every stroke the little craft leaped as if a giant hand had shoved her forward.1922, A. M. Chisholm, A Thousand a Plate
2. (transitive) To flourish with a swishing sound.
   • to swish a cane back and forth
   • And backward and forward he swish'd his long tail / As a gentleman swishes his cane.1829 [1799], Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, “The Devil's Thoughts”, in The Poetical Works of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats, Paris: A. and W. Galignani, page 239
3. (dated, slang, transitive) To flog; to lash.
   • After Virginia came the twins, who were usually called "the Star and Stripes", as they were always getting swished.1906, Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost
   • Doctor Wordsworth and assistants would swish that error out of him in a way that need not here be mentioned.c. 1842, William Makepeace Thackeray, Character Sketches
4. To make a successful basketball shot that does not touch the rim or backboard.
5. (slang) To mince or otherwise to behave in an effeminate manner.
   • I shall not swish; I'll merely act limp-wristed.
   • Therefore, I couldn't imagine the men I would be attracted to attracted in turn to someone who was effeminate. Ergo, I'd better not swish — not if I wanted the kind of sexual partners I thought I did.1986, Samuel R. Delany, Joseph Beam, “The Possibility of Possibilities”, in Joseph Beam, editor, In The Life: A Black Gay Anthology, page 191
6. (transitive) To cause a liquid to move around in a container, or in one's mouth.
   • Swish the mouthwash around the mouth and between the teeth for one minute.

Interjection

1. (onomatopoeic) A hissing or whistling sound of something travelling quickly through the air.
   • "Just like parade it had been a minute before then stumble, bang, swish! Wiped out!" he said.1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 84
2. (onomatopoeic) The sound of a basketball going in the hoop.