swerve

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“
The least swerve, and we'd never ha 'come up again.

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Definitions (13)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. transitive and intransitive verb To turn aside or be turned aside from a straight course.
  2. noun The act of swerving.
  3. Syntax Note
    Synonyms: swerve, depart, deviate, digress, diverge, stray, veer1
    These verbs mean to turn away from a straight or prescribed course: a gaze that never swerved; won't depart from family traditions; deviated from the original plan; digressed from the main topic; opinions that diverged; strays from the truth; a conversation that veered away from sensitive issues.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (5)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (3)

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Examples (50)

  • But the car didn't swerve, the driver kept going, obviously practiced and moving much too fast for Jonathan to shoot out the tires He came to a shoe store and went inside, rifle raised. —  F ;SF - vol 101 issue 03 - September 2001
  • But the car didn't swerve, the driver kept going, obviously practiced and moving much too fast for Jonathan to shoot out the tires. —  F ;SF; - vol 101 issue 03 - September 2001
  • So to place this as a swerve wouldnt be far-fetched. —  Blog updates
  • University Police Department Officer Gene Rodgers saw a man in a lifted black Chevrolet truck swerve, and Rodgers flipped on his lights to reign in the driver.
  • Swerves followed this initial swerve, with the bandwagon perpetually adding and losing passengers. —  The American Spectator
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

Used in the same contextWord Family

swerve:   swerved ·  swerving
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English swerven, from Old English sweorfan, to rub, scour.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. from Middle English swerven, swarven, turn aside, etc., from Anglo-Saxon sweorfan (preterit swearf, past participle sworfen), rub, file, polish, = Old Saxon swerban, wipe, = OFries. swerva, creep, = Middle Dutch swerven, Dutch zwerven = Low German swarven, swerve, wander, riot, = Old High German swerban, Middle High German swerben = Icelandic sverfa, file, = Gothic (Moesogothic) *swairban, in comp. biswairban, wipe; cf. Danish svarbe = Swedish svarfva, turn in a lathe (from Low German ?). The development of senses appears to have been ‘rub, wipe, polish, file, move to and fro, turn, turn aside, wander’; but two orig. different words may be concerned. Skeat assumes a connection with Danish dial. svirre, move to and fro, swerve, turn aside, Danish svirre, whirl round, svire, revel, = Swedish svirra, murmur, hum. Cf. swarve.
  2. from swerve, v.
 

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/swərv/
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