If you swipe at a person or thing, you try to hit them with a stick or other object, making a swinging movement with your arm. She swiped at Rusty as though he was a fly He swiped me across the shoulder with the poker. Swipe is also a noun. He took a swipe at Andrew that deposited him on the floor
If you take a swipe at a person or an organization, you criticize them, usually in an indirect way. In a swipe at the president, he called for an end to `begging for aid around the world'
If you swipe a credit card or swipe card through a machine, you pass it through a narrow space in the machine so that the machine can read information on the card's magnetic strip. Swipe your card through the phone, then dial