Login

Green’s Dictionary of Slang

swan v.

[the image of a swan gliding over water]

to wander, to drift, to amble.

1899		Ade Fables in Sl. (1902) 78: Now and then remarking to Himself, ‘Well, I’ll jest swan to Guiney’.
1968		P. Barnes Ruling Class II vii: A few worthless trinkets to keep the memory green when I’m swanning on the Cote de Jour.
1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 115: A handsome, young, lean and muscular Negro pimp swanned in off the street.
1999		Indep. Rev. 1 Jun. 1: A white woman with a new bouffant hairstyle swans past.
2000		Indep. Rev. 27 Jan. 7: She recently dumped her baby, Phoebe, and swanned off to Morocco.
2010		L. Redhead Thrill City [ebook] I think she did more swanning around in coffee shops [...] than actually writing anything.

In phrases

swan about (v.) (also swan around)

(orig. milit.) to wander blithely and carelessly without a care in the world, to loaf around.

1942		Daily Tel. 3 Sept. 6/6: Breaking up his armour into comparatively small groups of [...] tanks, he began ‘swanning about’, feeling north, north-west and east for them [i.e. British tanks].
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 106: One morning I was swanning around the ‘centre’.
1977		(con. 1940s) O. Manning Danger Tree 91: We’re to swan about and sting the jerries whenever and wherever we get the chance.
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 50: One can either be ‘on a swan’ or ‘swanning around’. Swanning is loafing, although if one is swanning around one is a travelling loafer or swaggie. To confuse the issue if one ‘swans around all day’ it usually means one has had an agreeable time at several different boozers. Swanning around at work means hiding in the bog.
1987		‘Barbara Vine’ A Fatal Inversion 139: And where were you? Swanning about the Aegean.
1996		P. Temple Bad Debts (2012) [ebook] Don’t know if I’d go swanning around Tokyo.
1997		C. McPherson The Weir 67: Me swanning around. A man of substance.
1998		P. McCabe Breakfast on Pluto 102: It wasn’t as if I was swanning about the village like a tart or something.
2000		Guardian 21 Jan. 32: How is we footballers going to keep up our rep as the biggest of spenders if he can swan around unhindered melting the plastic?
2019		S. Bythell Confessions of a Bookseller 199: ‘A funny wee man came in when you were away swanning about in the Highlands’.