Meaning
A situation in which gains and losses even out, an advantage in one respect being offset by a disadvantage in another, so that overall nothing much is lost or won. Almost always used in the frame 'it's swings and roundabouts', often with a shrugging tone of acceptance. Chiefly British and Commonwealth English. Informal and philosophical-shrugging; rare in formal writing outside quoted speech. Regional use: British English.
Origin
The expression is a shortened form of the fairground proverb 'what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts', said to have originated among travelling showmen whose poor takings on one ride were recouped on another. This checks out as a British twentieth-century coinage rather than an ancient saying: The Phrase Finder's earliest citation is from 1912, a poem in P. Chalmers's Green Days and Blue Days rendered 'What's lost upon the roundabouts we pulls up on the swings', and the Penguin Dictionary of Cliches, quoted in the same archive, describes the proverb as current from the beginning of the twentieth century in various forms. The shortened two-word form followed as the rhyme became familiar.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- it's all swings and roundabouts
- lose on the swings, win on the roundabouts
- swings-and-roundabouts (hyphenated modifier)
- what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts
Usage Examples
- The new flat costs more, but I walk to work instead of commuting, so it is swings and roundabouts.
- Higher interest rates hurt borrowers and help savers; it is all swings and roundabouts.
- Losing that client stung, though the redundancy package softened the blow, swings and roundabouts really.