Other forms: swiping, swipes, swiped
To swipe is to drag your finger across a screen. Left to dismiss, right to keep, down to make the inbox refresh.
You swipe a card too — through the slot at the till, over the reader at the office door. Both come from an older, wider swipe: a long sweeping blow. A cat swipes at a dangling string; a branch swipes the side of the van. There is a noun for that blow, and a second noun for a verbal one — a swipe at the government slipped into an otherwise polite speech. And informally, to swipe something is to steal it lightly: someone swiped my umbrella from the stand. Note that swiping a card is the opposite of stealing it, and that the word has no connection to swipe's near-neighbour wipe.
1verbswipeTo move a finger or thumb across a touchscreen.
“Swipe left on the message and the delete button appears.”
2verbpassTo pass a card through or over a reader in order to pay or open a door.
“He swiped his badge at the barrier and it stayed shut.”
3verbtryTo hit, or try to hit, something with a long sweeping movement.
“The cat swiped at the ribbon and missed by an inch.”
4verbstealTo steal something small in a quick, casual way.
“Somebody swiped the last two biscuits off the plate.”
5nounblowA sweeping blow or attempt to hit.
“He took a wild swipe at the ball and hit the fence.”
6nouncriticalA critical remark aimed at someone, dropped in passing.
“Her speech included a swipe at the previous manager.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Swipe began as a beating. Old English swipian meant to scourge, to strike, to lash, and the Proto-Germanic ancestor *swipōną meant simply to move — the same family that gave English sweep and swoop, from a Proto-Indo-European root *sweyb- meaning to bend, sway, swing, turn. The lash has shrunk to a thumb crossing glass, but the shape of the movement never changed.
Proto-Indo-European
*sweyb- — to bend, sway, swing, sweep, swerve, turn
Proto-Germanic
*swipōną
Proto-West Germanic
*swippjan
Old English
sweopian
Middle English
swippen
English, today
swipe
Built from
From earlier swip (with a short vowel), from Middle English swippen, swype (“to move violently”), from Old English sweopian, swipian, swippan (“to scourge, strike, beat, lash”), from Proto-West Germanic swippjan, swipōn, swipēn, from Proto-Germanic swipōną, swipjaną, swipāną (“to move”), from Proto-Indo-European sweyb- (“to bend, sway, swing, sweep, swerve, turn”). Cognate with German schwippen (“sway back and forth”), Danish svippe (“to smack; crack a whip”), Icelandic svipa (“riding crop, whip”). Related to sweep, swoop.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA