swung

Swung is the past tense and past participle of the verb swing. The base verb describes moving back and forth or around a pivot. In English, swing is irregular: present tense swing, past tense swung, past participle swung. It can be used intransitively, as in The pendulum swung, or transitively, as in He swung the door open.

Swung is used to form perfect tenses and passive constructions. For example, The gate has swung shut, or The gate was swung open. In adjectival or descriptive contexts, phrases like a swung door appear, though such usage is less common than passive constructions created with swung.

In music, swung describes a rhythmic feel where pairs of eighth notes are played with unequal duration. This typically implies a triplet feel, with the first note longer than the second. The exact timing varies by tempo and performer, but the intention is a “grooving” propulsion characteristic of swing and many jazz styles. When music notation instructs “swung eighths” or simply “swung,” performers interpret the rhythm to emphasize the long-short pattern rather than even subdivision.

Beyond language and music, swung appears in everyday description of motion: things that have been moved by swinging, such as a rope, a pendulum, or a door that has been moved through a swinging action. The term remains common in both spoken and written English as a flexible descriptor of motion and rhythm.