Dictionary

swill en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /swɪl/
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From Middle English swilen (“to wash; swirl; wash away”), from Old English swillan, swilian (“to wash; wash down; swill; gargle”), from Proto-West Germanic *swilljan, from Proto-Germanic *swiljaną (“to gulp, swallow”), from Proto-Indo-European *swel- (“to drink, gulp, swallow”). Related to swallow.

Meanings

1. (collective, countable, uncountable) A mixture of solid and liquid food scraps fed to pigs etc; especially kitchen waste for this purpose.
2. (broadly, countable, uncountable) Any disgusting or distasteful liquid.
   • I cannot believe anyone could drink this swill.
3. (broadly, countable, figuratively, uncountable) Anything disgusting or worthless.
   • This new TV show is a worthless load of swill.
   • They have helped foster a corrosive, mean-spirited, angry and divisive atmosphere that May and her lieutenants are too weak to challenge. Into this swill comes Leave financier-in-chief, Arron Banks, who last week announced he was setting up a “Patriotic Alliance” to attempt to unseat 100 Remain-supporting MPs. 2017 March 27, “The Observer view on triggering article 50”, in The Observer:
4. (countable, informal, uncountable) A large quantity of liquid drunk at one swallow.
   • He took a swill of his drink and tried to think of words.
5. (countable, informal, uncountable) Inexpensive beer or alcohol.
   • Kesh's assistant, Wilma, wants to surprise Kesh with some bootlegged swill from Kadara. 2017, BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Task: Beer Run:
6. (countable, qualifier:ultimate frisbee, uncountable) A badly-thrown pass.

Forms

Coordinates

hooch · rotgut

Deriveds

swill-tub · monkey swill · unrepresentative swill · six o'clock swill · swill-pot · swill-flagon · swill-pail · swilltub · swill-bowl · swill milk · swill-belly · swill-box · swill-can · swillbelly

Synonyms

slops · pigswill · hogwash · swig

Translations (85)

tl kaning-baboy (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · de Spültrank (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · za raemxmok (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · ro dușcă (large quantity of liquid drunk at one swallow) · cmn 泔水 (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · it sciacquatura (anything disgusting or worthless) · cmn 潲 (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · it sbobba (anything disgusting or worthless) · fi roska (anything disgusting or worthless) · el ξεπλύματα (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · es aguachirle (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · hu moslék (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · de Jauche (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · gl galdruxe (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · cs pomyje (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · gl bazofia (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · pl haust (large quantity of liquid drunk at one swallow) · ru по́йло (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · es tichate (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · es bazofia (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · ru помои (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · de Schweinefutter (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · fi rapakalja (inexpensive beer or alcohol) · de Brühe (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · cs pomeje (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · gl brodio (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · de Zug (large quantity of liquid drunk at one swallow) · mk помија (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · gl galdrumada (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · fr soupe (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · fi kuravesi (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · de Fusel (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · nl bocht (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · ro rahat (anything disgusting or worthless) · it intruglio (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · it sbobba (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · gl bazofia (anything disgusting or worthless) · it brodaglia (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · mk помија (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · hu kutyulék (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · it sbobba (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · fi hörppy (large quantity of liquid drunk at one swallow) · pl źle rzucone podanie (ultimate frisbee: badly-thrown pass) · pl siki (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · pl lura (inexpensive beer or alcohol) · war sagmaw (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · bcl sagmaw (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · fi kulaus (large quantity of liquid drunk at one swallow) · it brodaglia (anything disgusting or worthless) · it risciacquatura (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · sk pomyje (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · pl syf (anything disgusting or worthless) · de großer Schluck (large quantity of liquid drunk at one swallow) · it beverone (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · hu lötty (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · it avanzi (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · hu kotyvalék (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · de Schund (anything disgusting or worthless) · it ingurgitata (large quantity of liquid drunk at one swallow) · fi moska (inexpensive beer or alcohol) · pt zurrapa (inexpensive beer or alcohol) · de Kaspel (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · hu mosogatólé (anything disgusting or worthless) · gl brodio (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · sk zvyšky (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · za raemxuq (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · el ξέπλυμα (anything disgusting or worthless) · ru помои (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · nl slobber (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · de Futtersuppe (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · el ξέπλυμα (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · fi sianruoka (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · it intruglio (anything disgusting or worthless) · pl lura (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · ro lături (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · de Gesöff (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · gl goldroada (any disgusting or distasteful liquid) · bg помия (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · fi moska (anything disgusting or worthless) · pl pomyje (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · bcl laon (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · it pastone (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · cs šlichta (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · pt lavagem (mixture of solid and liquid food scraps) · ro poșircă (inexpensive beer or alcohol)

swill en · VERB

Pronunciation

• /swɪl/
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From Middle English swilen (“to wash; swirl; wash away”), from Old English swillan, swilian (“to wash; wash down; swill; gargle”), from Proto-West Germanic *swilljan, from Proto-Germanic *swiljaną (“to gulp, swallow”), from Proto-Indo-European *swel- (“to drink, gulp, swallow”). Related to swallow.

Meanings

1. (transitive) To drink (or, rarely, eat) greedily or to excess.
   • “It is time lost,” muttered Cedric apart and impatiently, “to speak to him of aught else but that which concerns his appetite! […] he hath no pleasure save to fill, to swill, and to call for more. […]” 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter XXI, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC:
   • The awful judge at the trial, booze-swilling hack James Haggerty 1992 February 2, Mitzel, “Clay Shaw, The Quean Network & That Kennedy Killing”, in Gay Community News, volume 19, number 28, page 6:
   • […] well-dressed people, of both sexes, […] devouring sliced beef, and swilling port, and punch, and cider […] 1771, [Tobias Smollett], The Expedition of Humphry Clinker […], volume I, London: […] W. Johnston, […]; and B. Collins, […], →OCLC, page 188:
   • 1944, Rutherford George Montgomery (as Al Avery), A Yankee Flier in Italy, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, Chapter 1, p. 9, O’Malley answered calmly as he shoved half of the pie into his mouth. “Stop! Stop—swilling that pie!” the colonel roared.
   • If you can give me no more than twenty-five shillings, I'm sure I'm not going to buy you pork-pie to stuff, after you've swilled a bellyful of beer. 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter 8, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:
2. (transitive) To wash (something) by flooding with water.
   • As fearfully as doth a galled rock / O’erhang and jutty his confounded base, / Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean. 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:
   • When my turn came for the bath, I asked if I might swill out the tub, which was streaked with dirt, before using it. 1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XXVII, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC, page 197:
   • Already, at three o’clock, Kezia, the good-hearted, bad-tempered housemaid, who regarded all people that came to the sale as her personal enemies, the dirt on whose feet was of a peculiarly vile quality, had begun to scrub and swill with an energy much assisted by a continual low muttering […] 1860, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], “Tending to Refute the Popular Prejudice against the Present of a Pocket-knife”, in The Mill on the Floss […], volume II, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book III (The Downfall), pages 83–84:
3. (transitive) To move (a liquid or liquid-filled vessel) in a circular motion.
   • Jimmie looked lovingly at the flask, smelt it, and then, placing it next his ear, swilled it round to hear the splash of liquor. 1958, Muriel Spark, chapter 6, in Robinson, New York: New Directions, published 2003, page 69:
   • He swilled round the whisky in his glass […] 2004, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 14, in The Line of Beauty […], London: Picador, →ISBN:
4. (intransitive, of a liquid) To move around or over a surface.
   • A flood of fads swilled over all Europe. 1959, Ezra Pound, “Canto 96”, in The Cantos of Ezra Pound, New York: New Directions, published 1986, page 654:
   • 2000, Hanif Kureishi, “Goodbye, Mother” in Granta 69, Spring 2000, p. 119, The smell, the internal workings of every human being, the shit, blood, mucus swilling in a bag of flesh, made him mad. He felt he was wearing the glasses the stage hypnotist had given people, but instead of seeing them naked, he saw their inner physiology, their turbulence, their death.
   • […] before them, between the high banks of the Vaal, they saw only a world of brown water, streaked with white froth, hurling down upon them. It rose above the foot-board and swilled to the level of the seat. 1906, Perceval Gibbon, “The Coward”, in Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases, New York: McClure, Phillips, pages 222–223:
5. (obsolete, transitive) To inebriate; to fill with drink.
   • […] I should be loath To meet the rudenesse, and swill’d insolence Of such late Wassailers; 1634 October 9 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC:
   • Have I not kept open house for three days and nights, and swilled yourself and comrades with liquor for a week, and haven’t you all been drunk at my expense for several days? 1858 July 17, “A Primary Election at Peter Cooper’s Funny Little Grocery-Groggery”, in Stephen H. Branch’s Alligator, volume I, number 13, page 2:
6. (transitive) To feed swill to (pigs).
   • “Carlia, have you swilled the pigs?” 1921, Nephi Anderson, chapter 8, in Dorian, Salt Lake City, page 84:

Forms

Deriveds

swiller · swill down · unswilled · swill up