Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A swimming stroke in which a person swims on one side and thrusts the arms forward and downward alternately while performing a scissors kick.
  • intransitive verb To swim with a sidestroke.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A swimming stroke swum on the swimmer's side.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a swimming stroke in which the arms move forward and backward while the legs do a scissors kick

Etymologies

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Examples

  • I fought the cold and the swell and built a kind of sidestroke rhythm.

    Persuader Child, Lee 2003

  • Although it's out of fashion, I find sidestroke is by far the best for sea swimming – there's no putting your head in the water, so breathing and vision are easy: useful, as Byron would not have had goggles.

    Notes & queries: The universe? It's a mesh knitted by the flying spaghetti monster • Bottom line on skirting boards • Byron's swimming style 2011

  • "I was swimming sidestroke, and began to notice a strange fluctuating and hissing noise under my submerged left ear; it was very eerie, like an echo in a vast dark room below, and I thought it must have been the grinding of pebbles and silt at the bottom of the sea."

    So No More He'll Go A-Roving David Mason 2011

  • "I was swimming sidestroke, and began to notice a strange fluctuating and hissing noise under my submerged left ear; it was very eerie, like an echo in a vast dark room below, and I thought it must have been the grinding of pebbles and silt at the bottom of the sea."

    So No More He'll Go A-Roving David Mason 2011

  • I drew her down and we went to work sidestroke-like, while she nibbled and bit at my ears and chin and lips, gasping and shuddering like the expert trollop she was; I remember thinking, as she gave her final practised heave and sob, Susie was right: with another nineteen like this we'll be able to buy California after a year or two; maybe I'll stay about for a while.

    Isabelle Estelle Bruno 2010

  • Using a sidestroke kick or a breast-stroke, provided you have not dropped the victim, swim him or her back to the boat or to the shore.

    How To Rescue A Drowning Man 2010

  • But the scissor kick on my sidestroke took a bit of feeling out.

    Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway 2008

  • It wasn't that I didn't have the strength, it was that I never swam sidestroke enough for it to be natural.

    Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway 2008

  • Mostly I did the sidestroke and froggy-backstroke Bardiac, queen of not-quite-real swimming strokes, and a bit of breaststroke.

    Archive 2009-06-01 Bardiac 2009

  • Mostly I did the sidestroke and froggy-backstroke Bardiac, queen of not-quite-real swimming strokes, and a bit of breaststroke.

    8 Miles Bardiac 2009

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