Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To drink greedily or grossly.
  • intransitive verb To follow the ingestion of (food, for example) with the ingestion of a liquid.
  • intransitive verb To flood with water, as for washing or rinsing.
  • intransitive verb To swirl (a liquid) around in a container or in one's mouth.
  • intransitive verb To feed (animals) with swill.
  • intransitive verb To drink greedily or to excess.
  • noun A mixture of liquid and solid food, such as table scraps, fed to animals, especially pigs; slop.
  • noun Liquor or other alcohol of poor quality.
  • noun A swig or gulp of a drink.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A wicker basket of a round or globular form, with open top, in which red herrings and other fish and goods are carried to market for sale.
  • noun Specifically A basket of 100 herrings.
  • noun Liquid in general; especially a liquid that leaks, gushes, or swills in.
  • noun Drink; liquor, as drunk to excess: so called in contempt.
  • noun Liquid food for animals; specifically, the refuse or leavings of the kitchen, as given to swine.
  • noun A keeler to wash in, standing on three feet.
  • To rinse; drench; wash; bathe.
  • To drink greedily or to excess.
  • To fill; swell with fullness.
  • To wash; rinse.
  • To drink greedily; drink to excess.
  • noun A shade.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The wash, or mixture of liquid substances, given to swine; hogwash; -- called also swillings.
  • noun Large draughts of liquor; drink taken in excessive quantities.
  • intransitive verb To drink greedily or swinishly; to drink to excess.
  • transitive verb obsolete To wash; to drench.
  • transitive verb To drink in great draughts; to swallow greedily.
  • transitive verb To inebriate; to fill with drink.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun a mixture of solid and liquid food scraps fed to pigs etc; especially kitchen waste for this purpose
  • noun any disgusting or distasteful liquid
  • noun anything disgusting or worthless
  • noun a large quantity of liquid drunk at one swallow
  • noun Ultimate Frisbee A badly-thrown pass
  • noun Inexpensive beer
  • verb to eat or drink greedily or to excess
  • verb to wash something by flooding with water

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb feed pigs
  • verb drink large quantities of (liquid, especially alcoholic drink)
  • noun wet feed (especially for pigs) consisting of mostly kitchen waste mixed with water or skimmed or sour milk

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English swilen, to wash out, from Old English swilian; see swel- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

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  • c725 Corpus Gloss. (Hessels) G3 Gargarizet, gagul suille.

    June 23, 2008

  • c725 Corpus Gloss. (Hessels) G3 Gargarizet, gagul suille.

    June 23, 2008

  • c725 Corpus Gloss. (Hessels) G3 Gargarizet, gagul suille.

    June 23, 2008

  • The pigs are hungry today, oh boy.

    June 23, 2008

  • Utterly morose

    after eight of Bass,

    I review the gross

    sub-species and freaks

    swilling at the bar.

    - Peter Reading, 5x5x5x5x5, 1983

    July 1, 2008