swerve

Etymology

From Middle English swerven, swarven, from Old English sweorfan (“to file; rub; polish; scour; turn aside”), from Proto-Germanic *swerbaną (“to rub off; wipe; mop”), from Proto-Indo-European *swerbʰ- (“to turn; wipe; sweep”). Cognate with West Frisian swerve (“to wander; roam; swerve”), Dutch zwerven (“to wander; stray; roam”), Low German swarven (“to swerve; wander; riot”), Swedish dialectal svärva (“to wipe”), Icelandic sverfa (“to file”).

verb

1. (archaic) To stray; to wander; to rove.
2. To go out of a straight line; to deflect.
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. 1785, The Book of Common Prayer According to the Use in King's Chapel
4. To bend; to incline; to give way.
5. To climb or move upward by winding or turning.
   The tree was high; / Yet nimbly up from bough to bough I swerved. c. 1692, John Dryden, Amaryllis
6. To turn aside or deviate to avoid impact.
7. Of a projectile, to travel in a curved line
   Snodgrass also saw a free-kick swerve just wide before Arsenal, with Walcott and Fabregas by now off the bench, turned their vastly superior possession into chances in the closing moments January 8, 2011, Chris Bevan, “Arsenal 1 - 1 Leeds”, in BBC
8. To drive in the trajectory of another vehicle to stop it, to cut off.
   The French invaders, like an infuriated animal that has in its onslaught received a mortal wound, felt that they were perishing, but could not stop, any more than the Russian army, weaker by one half, could help swerving. 1869, Leo Tolstoy, War & Peace, Part 10, Chapter 39
9. (transitive, slang) To go out of one's way to avoid; to snub.
   If I see that type o' muthafucka in the club I just swerve him.

noun

1. A sudden movement out of a straight line, for example to avoid a collision.
   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. 1990, American Motorcyclist, volume 44, number 7, page 11
2. A deviation from duty or custom.
   […] indubitable evidence of a swerve from the principle of the work. 1874, William Edwin Boardman, Faith-work, Or the Labours of Dr. Cullis, in Boston, page 56