switching
Word family
Synonym discussion
Sense: verb/2
Switch, change, swap, shift, and alternate all describe moving from one thing to another, but they differ in important ways. Switch and swap both stress a full replacement — you stop using one thing and start using another — but swap is more informal and often implies a mutual exchange between two people (they swapped phone numbers). Change is the broadest and most neutral; it can mean any alteration, big or small, and does not always suggest replacing one thing with another (she changed her hair). Shift suggests a gradual movement or a change in position or emphasis rather than a clean break (opinion shifted over time). Alternate means switching back and forth between exactly two options in a repeated pattern (they alternate between comedy and drama each week).
Common collocations
Etymology
Switch entered English in the late 1500s from Middle Dutch swijch, meaning a slender twig or branch. This gave rise to the sense of a flexible rod used for whipping. By the early 1800s, the word took on a new meaning in railway contexts: a mechanical device for shifting a train from one track to another — the idea being something that flicks or moves something aside, like a twig snapping back. From railways, the meaning broadened to any device that opens or closes an electrical circuit (late 1800s), and later to any act of changing or exchanging one thing for another.
First known use
1597
1597, in the meaning defined at sense 1 Verb