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To be supported by water or other fluid; not to sink; to float; as, any substance will swim, whose specific gravity is less than that of the fluid in which it is immersed.

A moaning or sighing sound or noise; a sough. [Obs.] Chaucer.

One who swims.

everal pairs occur on the abdominal somites of many crustaceans. They are used as fins in swimming.

That swims; capable of swimming; adapted to, or used in, swimming; as, a swimming bird; a swimming motion.

In an easy, gliding manner, as if swimming; smoothly; successfully; prosperously.

Act or state of swimming; suffusion. "A swimmingness in the eye." Congreve.

Swimming in the open sea; -- said of certain marine animals.

g air-tight cells, or cavities which can be filled with air, to render persons buoyant in swimming.

A Linnæan order of aquatic birds swimming by means of webbed feet, as the duck, or of lobed feet, as the grebe. In this order were included the geese, ducks, auks, divers, gulls, petrels, etc.

A genus of small free-swimming Tunicata, shaped somewhat like a tadpole, and remarkable for resemblances to the larvæ of other Tunicata. It is the type of the order Copelata or Larvalia. See Illustration in Appendix.

orm certain actions, as in the young to suck, in aquatic fowls to enter into water and to swim; the tendency of an organized body to seek what satisfies the wants of its organism. These lacteals have mouths, and by animal selection or appetency the absorb such part of the fluid as is agreeable to their palate. E. Darwi…

Any strong desire; an eagerness or longing. It God had given to eagles an appetite to swim. Jer. Taylor. To gratify the vulgar appetite for the marvelous. Macaulay.

Pertaining to water growing in water; living in, swimming in, or frequenting the margins of waters; as, aquatic plants and fowls.

A genus of small glassy heteropod mollusks found swimming at the surface in mid ocean. See Heteropod.

The larva of certain starfishes as developed in the free- swimming stage.

Anything inflated, empty, or unsound. "To swim with bladders of philosophy." Rochester. Bladder nut, or Bladder tree (Bot.), a genus of plants (Staphylea) with bladderlike seed pods. -- Bladder pod (Bot.), a genus of low herbs (Vesicaria) with inflated seed pods. -- Bladdor senna (Bot.), a genus of shrubs (Colutea),…

An aquatic hemipterous insect of the genus Notonecta; -- so called from swimming on its back, which gives it the appearance of a little boat. Called also boat fly, boat insect, boatman, and water boatman.

A swimming bird (Sula fiber or S. sula) related to the common gannet, and found in the West Indies, nesting on the bare rocks. It is so called on account of its apparent stupidity. The name is also sometimes applied to other species of gannets; as, S. piscator, the red-footed booby.

.) A peculiar early larval stage of certain starfishes, having a bilateral structure, and swimming by means of bands of vibrating cilia.