Word.ws English Dictionary

Tom Swiftie

Tom Swiftie is the alternative form of Tom Swifty.

Meaning of Tom Swifty

Noun

Tom Swifty (plural Tom Swifties)

  1. A humorous phrase in which a supposed quotation is linked by a pun to the manner in which it is attributed.
    • Since then the Tom Swifty has trudged on, not exactly swiftly but with an impressive staying power. You can find Web sites that list as many as nine hundred of them. As the above examples suggest, Tom Swifties are virtually never funny, but they illustrate an adverb-centered sin against writing.2008, Ben Yagoda, When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It, Crown, →ISBN, page 50

Forms of Tom Swiftie

pluralTom Swifties

Origin of Tom Swiftie

As for Tom Swifty, but + -ie.

Questions about Tom Swiftie

What is Tom Swiftie the alternative form of?
Tom Swiftie is the alternative form of Tom Swifty.

Words near Tom Swiftie in the dictionary

  1. Tom Sawyer
  2. Tom Sawyered
  3. Tom Sawyeresque
  4. Tom Sawyering
  5. Tom Sawyers
  6. Tom Swiftie
  7. Tom Swifties
  8. Tom Swifty
  9. Tom Thumb
  10. Tom Thumb golf
  11. Tom Thumbs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Tom Swiftie (page history and authors); Tom Swifty (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: “Tom Swiftie.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tom_swiftie. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.