Swept is the past tense of sweep, which means to clean a surface by brushing away dirt and dust with a broom. When you sweep the kitchen floor after dinner, you push crumbs and debris into a pile that you can collect and throw away. After a windstorm, you might see someone outside sweeping leaves off their driveway.

The word also describes any broad, continuous movement, like how wind sweeps across an open field or how a searchlight sweeps across the night sky. When a fashion trend sweeps through your school, it spreads quickly from person to person. A baseball team might sweep a series by winning every single game against their opponent.

Sometimes the word suggests being carried along powerfully: a current might sweep a boat downstream, or you might get swept up in the excitement of a celebration and find yourself cheering louder than you expected. When archaeologists discover artifacts that were swept away by an ancient flood, they mean the rushing water carried the objects far from their original location before depositing them somewhere new.