Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Swarming |
SwarmingAdjective1. Abundantly filled with especially living things; "the Third World's teeming millions"; "the teeming boulevard"; "harried by swarming rats". 2. (of birds and animals) tending to move or live together in groups or colonies of the same kind; "ants are social insects"; "the herding instinct in sheep or cattle"; "swarming behavior in bees". 3. Filled by being spread over; sometimes used in combination; "the foe-swarming field". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "swarming" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1321. (references) |
Synonyms: SwarmingSynonyms: herding(a) (adj), social (adj), swarming(a) (adj), teeming (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Assemblage | Adjective: assembled; Verb: closely packed, dense, serried, crowded to suffocation, teeming, swarming, populous; as thick as hops; all of a heap, fasciculated cumulative. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Swarming |
| English words defined with "swarming": alive with ♦ crawling with ♦ Locusting ♦ overflowing with, overrun with ♦ swarming with ♦ teeming, teeming with. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "swarming": CRYOSOPHILA WARCEWICZII. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "swarming": Swarm. (references) |
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Passengers were swarming out and bothering the conductor and engineer with silly questions. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Approximately 20 U.S. Navy landing barges of various types swarming about a mother ship off Safi, French Morocco, during American landing operations. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Mormon crickets swarming behind a cricket fence. Big Horn County, Montana. Credit: Library of Congress. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Play | Caption | Play | Caption |
 | Bees swarming. | | Hornets swarming and buzzing. |
| Swarming bees. | | Hornets swarming and buzzing. |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
Heinrich Heine | The foolish race of mankind are swarming below in the night; they shriek and rage and quarrel -- and all of them are right. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | They too shared, dimly lighted up by the reflection of so much joy, in this sweet and swarming whirl. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Swarming" is generally used as a lexical verb (-ing form) -- approximately 91.86% of the time. "Swarming" is used about 86 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Lexical Verb (-ing form) | 91.86% | 79 | 37,388 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 4.65% | 4 | 175,879 |
| Noun (singular) | 2.33% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Noun (proper) | 1.16% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 86 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "swarming": crawling withpredicate overrun with swarming swarming withpredicate teeming teeming withpredicate ♦ swarming with. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
bee swarming | 15 |
ant swarming | 13 |
swarming termite | 11 |
bee honey swarming | 3 |
insect swarming | 2 |
swarming | 2 |
fly swarming | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "swarming"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | مزدحم (congested, crammed, crowded, full, jammed, overcrowded, packed, populous, teeming). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 薨 (death of a prince), 成群移动. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | svaermning. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | zwermen (abound, swarm). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | parveilu. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | grouillement (swarm), fourmillement, essaimage. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | wimmelnd (teeming). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | σχηματισμός αφεσμού, πολλαπλασιασμός σμήνους μελισσών. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | רחיש" (creeping, moving, stir, trembling), "יר" (flowing, influx, streaming). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | rajzás ideje (swarming time), kirajzás ideje (swarming time). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | sciama, formicolio (pins and needles, prickle, tingle, tingling). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 分封 (dividing a fief, hiving off). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | ぶ"ぽう (dividing a fief, grammar, hiving off). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | er croo (alive with vermin, crawling, full). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | armingsway enxameação. (various references) viermuialã, roitor, roire. (various references) enjambrazón. (various references) svärmning. (various references) tryfrith (speckled, teeming). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words ending with "swarming": beswarming. (additional references) | |
| |
"Swarming" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: sworming, sworning. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "swarming" (pronounced swô"rming) |
| 6 | -w ô" r m i ng | warming. |
| 5 | -ô" r m i ng | conforming, forming, informing, misinforming, nonperforming, performing, reforming, storming, transforming. |
| 4 | -r m i ng | alarming, arming, barnstorming, brainstorming, charming, disarming, farming, harming, heartwarming, outperforming, rearming. |
| 3 | -m i ng | acclaiming, affirming, aiming, assuming, beaming, becoming, blaming, blooming, blossoming, bombing, booming, bottoming, brimming, calming, claiming, climbing, combing, coming, condemning, confirming, consuming, cramming, damming, damning, daydreaming, deprogramming, diagraming, dimming, disclaiming, dooming, dreaming, drumming, dumbing, embalming, exclaiming, filming, firebombing, firming, flaming, foaming, forthcoming, framing, fuming, gaming, gleaming, gloaming, grooming, helming, hemming, homecoming, homing, humming, incoming, inflaming, jamming, lambing, lemming, liming, looming, maiming, mainstreaming, mushrooming, naming, numbing, oncoming, overcoming, overwhelming, plumbing, presuming, priming, proclaiming, programing, programming, ramming, reaffirming, reclaiming, redeeming, renaming, reprogramming, resuming, rhyming, roaming, rooming, scheming, screaming, seeming, shaming, shortcoming, skimming, slamming, slimming, squirming, steaming, stemming, streaming, strumming, succumbing, summing, swimming, taming, teaming, teeming, terming, thumbing, timing, trimming, unassuming, unbecoming, upcoming, vacuuming, welcoming, zooming. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-g-i-m-n-r-s-w" | |
-1 letter: armings, margins, warming. | |
-2 letters: arming, gamins, grains, inarms, margin, mawing, rasing, rawins, sawing, waring, wigans, wrangs, wrings. | |
-3 letters: agism, airns, amins, amirs, awing, gains, gamin, garni, girns, gnars, gnaws, grain, grams, grans, grins, inarm, mains, mairs, minas, naris, ragis, rains, ranis, rawin, rings, sarin, sigma, simar, swain, swami, swang, swarm, swing, wains, wairs. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-g-i-m-n-r-s-w" | |
+2 letters: beswarming, misdrawing. | |
+3 letters: misawarding. | |
+4 letters: housewarming, scrimshawing. | |
+5 letters: housewarmings, metalworkings, warmongerings. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Sounds 8. Quotations: Familiar | 9. Quotations: Fiction 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
