swarm

From Middle English swarm, from Old English swearm (“swarm, multitude”), from Proto-Germanic *swarmaz (“swarm, dizziness”), from Proto-Indo-European *swer- (“to buzz, hum”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Swoorm (“swarm”), Dutch zwerm, German Schwarm, Danish sværm, Swedish svärm, Icelandic svarmur (“tumult, swarm”), Latin susurrus (“whispering, humming”), Lithuanian surma (“a pipe”), Russian свире́ль (svirélʹ, “a pipe, reed”).

The verb is from Middle English swarmen, swermen, from Old English swierman (“to swarm”), from Proto-Germanic *swarmijaną (“to swarm”), from the noun. Cognate with Scots swairm, swerm (“to swarm”), Dutch zwermen, German schwärmen, Danish sværme, Swedish svärma.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /swɔɹm/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /swɔːm/

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• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)m

swarm of locusts.

swarm (plural swarms)

1. A large number of insects, especially when in motion or (for bees) migrating to a new colony.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Milton

     a deadly swarm of hornets

2. A mass of people, animals or things in motion or turmoil.

   a swarm of meteorites

   • (Can we date this quote?) Addison

     those prodigious swarms that had settled themselves in every part of it [Italy]

3. (computing) A group of nodes sharing the same torrent in a BitTorrent network.

• aswarm

swarm (third-person singular simple present swarms, present participle swarming, simple past and past participle swarmed)

1. (intransitive) To move as a swarm.
   • 1915, G[eorge] A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter I, in Gossamer, New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran Company, OCLC 5661828:

     There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy. Mail bags, so I understand, are being put on board. Stewards, carrying cabin trunks, swarm in the corridors.

2. (intransitive) To teem, or be overrun with insects, people, etc.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Edmund Spenser

     Every place swarms with soldiers.

3. (transitive) To fill a place as a swarm.
4. (transitive) To overwhelm as by an opposing army.
5. To climb by gripping with arms and legs alternately.
   • (Can we date this quote?) William Coxe

     At the top was placed a piece of money, as a prize for those who could swarm up and seize it.

   • 1919, W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, chapter 55

     She called out, and a boy came running along. He swarmed up a tree, and presently threw down a ripe nut. Ata pierced a hole in it, and the doctor took a long, refreshing draught.

6. To breed multitudes.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     Not so thick swarmed once the soil / Bedropped with blood of Gorgon.

• Appendix:English collective nouns

• warms

• swrame, swarme

From Old English swearm, from Proto-Germanic *swarmaz.

• IPA^(key): /swarm/, /swɛrm/

swarm (plural swarmes)

1. A swarm (large, moving group of bees)
2. (rare) A large group of people.

• swarmen

• English: swarm
• Scots: swairm

• “swarm (n.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-11-24.