• (British) IPA: /swɜː(ɹ)v/
• (GA) IPA: /swɝv/

swerve (swerves, present participle swerving; 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.

   • The point [of the sword] swerved.

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.

   • I swerve not from thy commandments.

   • They swerve from the strict letter of the law.

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

4. To bend; to incline.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book 6”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:

     The battle swerved.

5. To climb or move upward by winding or turning.

   • 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.

• swarf

• Russian: блужда́ть

• Italian: deviare
• Portuguese: desviar
• Russian: отклоня́ться

• Italian: deviare
• Russian: отходи́ть

• Italian: inclinarsi
• Russian: сгиба́ться

• Italian: arrampicarsi

• German: ausweichen
• Italian: schivare, scansare, scapolare, derapare
• Russian: уклоня́ться

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.

• Italian: sbandata, deviazione, scarto, sbalzo, scostamento
• Spanish: volantazo