different between swerve vs steered

English

Alternative forms

• swarve

Etymology

From Middle English swerven, swarven, from Old English sweorfan (“to file; rub; polish; scour; turn aside”), from Proto-Germanic *swerban? (“to rub off; wipe; mop”), from Proto-Indo-European *swerb?- (“to turn; wipe; sweep”). Cognate with West Frisian swerve (“to wander; roam; swerve”), Dutch zwerven (“to wander; stray; roam”), Low German swarven (“to swerve; wander; riot”), Swedish dialectal svärva (“to wipe”), Icelandic sverfa (“to file”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /sw??(?)v/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /sw?v/
• Rhymes: -??(r)v

Verb

swerve (third-person singular simple present swerves, present participle swerving, simple past and past participle swerved)

1. (archaic) To stray; to wander; to rove.

   • A maid thitherward did run, / To catch her sparrow which from her did swerve.

2. To go out of a straight line; to deflect.
3. To wander from any line prescribed, or from a rule or duty; to depart from what is established by law, duty, custom, or the like; to deviate.
   • 1785, The Book of Common Prayer According to the Use in King's Chapel

     I swerve not from thy commandments.

   • They swerve from the strict letter of the law.

   • October 28, 1705, Francis Atterbury, a sermon

     many who, through the contagion of evil example, swerve exceedingly from the rules of their holy Faith

4. To bend; to incline.
5. To climb or move upward by winding or turning.
   • c. 1692, John Dryden, Amaryllis

     The tree was high; / Yet nimbly up from bough to bough I swerved.

6. To turn aside or deviate to avoid impact.
7. Of a projectile, to travel in a curved line
8. To drive in the trajectory of another vehicle to stop it, to cut off.
   • 1869, Leo Tolstoy, War & Peace, Part 10, Chapter 39:

     The French invaders, like an infuriated animal that has in its onslaught received a mortal wound, felt that they were perishing, but could not stop, any more than the Russian army, weaker by one half, could help swerving.

Related terms

• swarf

Translations

Noun

swerve (plural swerves)

1. A sudden movement out of a straight line, for example to avoid a collision.
   • 1990, American Motorcyclist (volume 44, number 7, page 11)

     The distinction between using a skill subconsciously and employing it in the full knowledge of what was happening made a dramatic difference. I could execute a swerve to avoid an obstacle in a fraction of the time it previously took.

2. A deviation from duty or custom.
   • 1874, William Edwin Boardman, Faith-work, Or the Labours of Dr. Cullis, in Boston (page 56)

     […] indubitable evidence of a swerve from the principle of the work.

Derived terms

• body swerve

Translations

Anagrams

• Wevers

Middle English

Verb

swerve

1. Alternative form of swerven

English

Verb

steered

1. simple past tense and past participle of steer

Anagrams

• Deseret, reested