swimming
swim·ming/ˈswɪmɪŋ/noun, verb
swimming is spelled S-W-I-M-M-I-N-G, 2 syllables: swim·ming. The wrong spelling people search most is swiming: about 410 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 30 of all searches for the word. Swimming is a noun meaning “The act or art of sustaining and propelling the body in water”. The plural of swimming is swimmings.
How many letters and syllables are in swimming?
| Letters | 8: S-W-I-M-M-I-N-G |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2: swim·ming |
| In writing | 27 times per million words; the 3,422nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, swiming, about 410 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell swimming?
Swimming is spelled S-W-I-M-M-I-N-G. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 30 of the searches for swimming in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is swimming?
Swimming appears 27 times per million words in written English, the 3,422nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce swimming?
- /ˈswɪmɪŋ/
- /ˈswɪmiŋ/
Swimming has 2 syllables, split swim·ming in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-swimming.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of swimming
- swimmings plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does swimming mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The act or art of sustaining and propelling the body in water.
Triathlon competitors take part in open water swimming.
- 2
The state of being dizzy or in vertigo.
verb
- 1
present participle and gerund of swim
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Swimming in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense human activity of moving oneself through water:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does swimming come from?
From Middle English swymmynge. Equivalent to swim (“to move through water”, verb) + -ing (suffix forming gerunds).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).