Where does the phrase “to swan about” come from? The early examples are from the end of the nineteenth century and simply refer to swimming like a swan. Since swans glide through the water without any apparent effort, seemingly aimless and laid-back, the idiom “swan about” came to mean ambling about without a care in the world or travelling idly or purely for pleasure. Curiously, the evidence suggests this was initially military slang of the Second World War. The first example in the Oxford Engl