Where does “swimming” come from?
Swimming is an English gerund derived from Old English swimmian, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European swem(bʰ)-, meaning to move through water.
swimming (English): The act or art of sustaining and propelling the...
Definitions
- The act or art of sustaining and propelling the...
Ancestry of “swimming”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|
| 1 | English | -ing | Used to form gerunds, a type of verbal nouns,... |
| 2 | Old English | -ing | Forming nouns from verbs, indicating action,... |
| 3 | Old English | -tūn | — |
| 4 | Old English | tūn | enclosure, yard; place; dwelling |
| 5 | Proto-West Germanic | tūn | fence |
| 6 | Proto-Germanic | tūną | fence; enclosure |
| 7 | Gaulish | dunum | fort; hill, hillfort |
| 8 | Proto-Celtic | dūnom | stronghold, rampart |
| 9 | Proto-Indo-European | dʰewh₂- | smoke; mist, haze |
Words derived from “swimming”