swiftboat
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swiftboat
Where it comes from
Uncertain: Possibly, swift + boat, or possibly based on an acronym for Shallow Water Inshore Fast Tactical Craft. The use as a political term derives from a smear campaign against John Kerry when Texas tycoon Robert J. Perry hired several Navy swiftboat veterans to form the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which questioned the legitimacy of Kerry's status as a war hero.
noun swiftboats · swift boat · swift-boat
- A type of gunboat used by the United States military on inland waterways. The men narrowly missed death when the swiftboat in front of theirs took a direct hit from a Communist rocket-propelled grenade.
- A smear campaign based on specious claims. Lately, however, Republican swiftboat attacks have begun to fall short.
verb swiftboats · swiftboating · swiftboated · swift boat · swift-boat
- To attack a politician with specious claims. No one should have been surprised that the Republicans would try to swiftboat Hillary in 2016, turning an accomplished diplomat into a feckless bungler who lied to cover up her own failures.
- To smear; to attack someone or something's reputation using slander, misrepresentation, or false accusations. The Borgia family has had such a bad reputation over all these hundreds of years. Some of it is merited, and for some of it, they were swiftboated. The cardinals hired writers to write bad things about them.
Talk about this word "swiftboat." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/swiftboat. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. swiftboat. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/swiftboat "swiftboat." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/swiftboat.Cite this
@misc{swiftboat_2026,
title = {swiftboat},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/swiftboat},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
