aswim

English

Etymology

From a- +‎ swim.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /əˈswɪm/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪm

Adjective

aswim

1. Swimming or immersed (in or with something).
   • 1851, William Kelly, chapter 8, in An Excursion to California,‎^[1], volume 1, London: Chapman and Hall, page 138:

     The mules […] were alternately aswim and walking, the length of our team constituting our greatest safety; for when the wheel mules would be out of their depth, the lead and middle ones might not be over knee-deep, and vice versâ,

   • 1988, Peter Carey, chapter 30, in Oscar and Lucinda‎^[2], London: Faber and Faber, page 120:

     […] his mind was aswim with imagined conspiracies;

   • 2002, Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex‎^[3], New York: Picador, Book 3, p. 287:

     […] he looked to our own Greek diet—our eggplant aswim in tomato sauce, our cucumber dressings and fish-egg spreads […]

   • 2014, Natalie Angier, Woman: An Intimate Geography (Revised and Updated):

     By this generous, almost communistic imagery, we are all aswim in the same great gene pool, or fishers from the river of human perpetuity. If my line comes up empty, perhaps you will share your catch with me.

2. Brimming with liquid.

   eyes aswim with tears

Anagrams

• Swaim, Wasim, swami