Etymology: < swerve v.

Etymology: Common Germanic (originally) strong verb with a variety of meanings: Middle English swerve, past tense swarf to turn aside, representing Old English sweorfan, past tense swearf, past participle sworfen to file, scour, = Old Frisian swerva to creep, (West Frisian swerv(j)e, past tense swurf, past participle swurven to wander, hurry away, North Frisian swarwi), Old Saxon *swerƀan to wipe, only in past tense swarf, Middle Dutch swerven (Dutch zwerven) to rove, stray, Low German swarven to swerve, stray, riot, Old High German swerban (Middle High German swerben) to wipe, to move quickly backwards and forwards, whirl or twirl round (modern German has a derivative form schwirbeln), Old Norse sverfa, past tense svarf, svurfum, past participle sorfinn to file, (Norwegian swerva to whirl, swirl), Gothic -swaírban in afswaírban, biswaírban to wipe (away). The original sense of the radical may be that of agitated, irregular, or deflected movement; compare swarm n., etymology. The sense of filing did not survive the Old English period, but is preserved in the derivative noun swarf n.² The sudden emergence of the sense of ‘turn aside’ in Middle English is remarkable; the presumption is that it existed in Old English, since there is no known foreign source to account for it.