in the swim

English

WOTD – 9 January 2010

Pronunciation

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Prepositional phrase

in the swim

1. (idiomatic) Actively participating in the flow of events; very involved.
   • 1894, Ivan Turgenev, chapter 8, in Constance Garnett, transl., A House of Gentlefolk, published 1859:

     He had very little money, but he was lucky at cards, made many acquaintances, took part in all entertainments, in a word, he was in the swim.

   • 1903, Arthur Quiller-Couch, chapter 12, in The Mayor of Troy:

     These punctual jaunts, very sensibly practised as a purge against dullness, together with the stir and hubbub of a garrison town in which his walled garden stood isolated, as it were, all day long, amid marchings, countermarchings, bugle-calls, and the rumble of wagons filled with material of war, gave him a sense of being in the swim—of close participation in the world's affairs.

   • 2001 December 23, Ted Loos, “A Flashy Museum Gives a Quiet Painter a New Look”, in New York Times, retrieved 22 June 2009:

     But "he's right there in the center of things, in the swim of art history."

Translations

actively participating in the flow of events

• French: dans le courant, dans le vent (fr)
• Spanish: en la movida, en la brecha

See also

• thick of things