Other forms: switched, switching, switches
A switch is the small thing on the wall that turns a light on and off. Flick the switch, a light switch, the switch is stuck.
It makes or breaks a circuit, which is all it does. As a verb, to switch means to change from one thing to another — switch banks, switch off, switch sides. In railways, a switch is what Britain calls points. A switch is also a thin flexible stick, which is the oldest sense and where the electrical one probably came from.
1nounswitchA device that turns a circuit on and off.
“She felt along the wall in the dark for the light switch.”
2verbchangeTo change from one thing to another.
“I switched to a cheaper phone company and saved a lot of money.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
switch is a control device, or a changing.
The word probably comes from Middle Dutch swijch, a twig. The thin flexible stick came first, and the electrical device took the name from the flick.
Middle Dutch
swijch — twig
English, today
switch
Perhaps from Middle Dutch swijch (“twig”), c. The mechanical device for altering the direction of something sense is c, pertaining to pivoted rails on minecart railways, which were once wooden.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA