SWIMMER

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does swimmer mean? 

• SWIMMER (noun)
  The noun SWIMMER has 2 senses:

1. a trained athlete who participates in swimming meets

2. a person who travels through the water by swimming

  Familiarity information: SWIMMER used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SWIMMER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A trained athlete who participates in swimming meets

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Context example:

he was an Olympic swimmer

Hypernyms ("swimmer" is a kind of...):

athlete; jock (a person trained to compete in sports)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "swimmer"):

backstroker (someone who swims the backstroke)

breaststroker (someone who swims the breaststroke)

diver; plunger (someone who dives (into water))

skinny-dipper (a naked swimmer)

Instance hyponyms:

Ederle; Gertrude Caroline Ederle; Gertrude Ederle (United States swimmer who in 1926 became the first woman to swim the English Channel (1906-2003))

Derivation:

swim (travel through water)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A person who travels through the water by swimming

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

bather; natator; swimmer

Context example:

he is not a good swimmer

Hypernyms ("swimmer" is a kind of...):

traveler; traveller (a person who changes location)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "swimmer"):

floater (a swimmer who floats in the water)

aquanaut; skin-diver (an underwater swimmer equipped with a face mask and foot fins and either a snorkel or an air cylinder)

surfboarder; surfer (someone who engages in surfboarding)

Derivation:

swim (travel through water)

 Context examples 

Yet the current was swift and strong, and, good swimmer as he was, it was no easy task which Alleyne had set himself.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

After confirming that the neuromuscular tissue was compatible with their synthetic biobot skeletons, the teams worked to optimize the swimmers' abilities.

(Researchers build microscopic biohybrid robots propelled by muscles, nerves, National Science Foundation)

The microscopic, 3D-printed, doughnut-shaped tori are coated with nickel and platinum and bridge the gap between biological and synthetic swimmers.

(Tiny swimming 'doughnuts' deliver the biomedical goods, National Science Foundation)

Suddenly, with a plunge, as of the swimmer who leaves the bank, she hurried across the road, and we heard the sharp clang of the bell.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Contributory factors include excessive water exposure (swimmer's ear infection) and cuts in the ear canal.

(External Ear Infection, NCI Thesaurus)

While this allows them to be fast swimmers, it also means their skeletons often rot away instead of fossilizing.

(Ancient sharks likely more diverse than previously thought, National Science Foundation)

I fell over head and ears, and, if I had not been a good swimmer, it might have gone very hard with me; for Glumdalclitch in that instant happened to be at the other end of the room, and the queen was in such a fright, that she wanted presence of mind to assist me.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The boat flirted over and snubbed in to the bank bottom up, while Thornton, flung sheer out of it, was carried down-stream toward the worst part of the rapids, a stretch of wild water in which no swimmer could live.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

The micro-swimmers mimic biological behavior and might one day deliver targeted drugs or stir samples in a lab-on-a-chip — a laboratory in miniature.

(Tiny swimming 'doughnuts' deliver the biomedical goods, National Science Foundation)

The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors and hair shorn in strange new ways and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)