"swim upstream" meaning in English

See swim upstream in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-swim upstream.ogg [Australia] Forms: swims upstream [present, singular, third-person], swimming upstream [participle, present], swam upstream [past], swum upstream [participle, past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|swim<,,swam,swum> upstream}} swim upstream (third-person singular simple present swims upstream, present participle swimming upstream, simple past swam upstream, past participle swum upstream)
  1. (idiomatic) To opt for a difficult course of action when a simpler or safer alternative is available; to make an unwise decision against sound advice. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: do something the hard way
    Sense id: en-swim_upstream-en-verb-p2r0tme- Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for swim upstream meaning in English (1.8kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "swims upstream",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "swimming upstream",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "swam upstream",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "swum upstream",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "swim<,,swam,swum> upstream"
      },
      "expansion": "swim upstream (third-person singular simple present swims upstream, present participle swimming upstream, simple past swam upstream, past participle swum upstream)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I told my daughter to get her hair dyed at a salon, but she had to swim upstream and do it herself. Now it's a mess."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To opt for a difficult course of action when a simpler or safer alternative is available; to make an unwise decision against sound advice."
      ],
      "id": "en-swim_upstream-en-verb-p2r0tme-",
      "links": [
        [
          "difficult",
          "difficult"
        ],
        [
          "simpler",
          "simpler"
        ],
        [
          "safer",
          "safer"
        ],
        [
          "unwise",
          "unwise"
        ],
        [
          "decision",
          "decision"
        ],
        [
          "sound",
          "sound"
        ],
        [
          "advice",
          "advice"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To opt for a difficult course of action when a simpler or safer alternative is available; to make an unwise decision against sound advice."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "do something the hard way"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-swim upstream.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/63/En-au-swim_upstream.ogg/En-au-swim_upstream.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/En-au-swim_upstream.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "swim upstream"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "swims upstream",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "swimming upstream",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "swam upstream",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "swum upstream",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "swim<,,swam,swum> upstream"
      },
      "expansion": "swim upstream (third-person singular simple present swims upstream, present participle swimming upstream, simple past swam upstream, past participle swum upstream)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I told my daughter to get her hair dyed at a salon, but she had to swim upstream and do it herself. Now it's a mess."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To opt for a difficult course of action when a simpler or safer alternative is available; to make an unwise decision against sound advice."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "difficult",
          "difficult"
        ],
        [
          "simpler",
          "simpler"
        ],
        [
          "safer",
          "safer"
        ],
        [
          "unwise",
          "unwise"
        ],
        [
          "decision",
          "decision"
        ],
        [
          "sound",
          "sound"
        ],
        [
          "advice",
          "advice"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To opt for a difficult course of action when a simpler or safer alternative is available; to make an unwise decision against sound advice."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-swim upstream.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/63/En-au-swim_upstream.ogg/En-au-swim_upstream.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/En-au-swim_upstream.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "do something the hard way"
    }
  ],
  "word": "swim upstream"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.