Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To drink greedily or grossly: "Unshaven horsemen swill the great wines of the Chateaux” ( W.H. Auden).
- v. To flood with water, as for washing.
- v. To feed (animals) with swill.
- v. To drink or eat greedily or to excess.
- n. A mixture of liquid and solid food, such as table scraps, fed to animals, especially pigs; slop.
- n. Kitchen waste; garbage.
- n. A deep draft of liquor.
- n. Nonsense; rubbish.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- 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.
- n. Drink; liquor, as drunk to excess: so called in contempt.
- n. Liquid food for animals; specifically, the refuse or leavings of the kitchen, as given to swine.
- n. A keeler to wash in, standing on three feet.
- n. 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.
- n. Specifically A basket of 100 herrings.
- n. A shade.
- n. Liquid in general; especially a liquid that leaks, gushes, or swills in.
Wiktionary
- n. a mixture of solid and liquid food scraps fed to pigs etc; especially kitchen waste for this purpose
- n. any disgusting or distasteful liquid
- n. anything disgusting or worthless
- n. a large quantity of liquid drunk at one swallow
- n. Ultimate Frisbee A badly-thrown pass
- n. Inexpensive beer
- v. to eat or drink greedily or to excess
- v. to wash something by flooding with water
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To wash; to drench.
- v. To drink in great draughts; to swallow greedily.
- v. To inebriate; to fill with drink.
- v. To drink greedily or swinishly; to drink to excess.
- n. The wash, or mixture of liquid substances, given to swine; hogwash; -- called also
swillings . - n. Large draughts of liquor; drink taken in excessive quantities.
WordNet 3.0
- v. feed pigs
- v. drink large quantities of (liquid, especially alcoholic drink)
- n. wet feed (especially for pigs) consisting of mostly kitchen waste mixed with water or skimmed or sour milk
Etymologies
- Middle English swilen, to wash out, from Old English swilian; see swel- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Time to turn on the lights and watch them scurry back into the darkness … Their excessive postings and repeating their reich winged swill is all they have … So much hate, they truly are a miserable lot.”
“SIXPACK – that cheap piss you swill is starting to take a toll!”
Think Progress » O’Reilly Deceives Guest Into Appearing on Blog Bashing Segment
“I mean, ingesting corporate swill is all very well in the privacy of your own home … ..”
Think Progress » White House officials seek Bloomin’ Onion of the Far East.
“Hidden amid all this swill is actually a moderately interesting question, to wit: How does greater sexual openness in a culture affect those who, for whatever reasons, aren’t getting any?”
“The "swill" - when men raced to get as drunk as possible after work before closing time - was finally over.”
“And at the better ball parks they actually serve something other than the swill from the major breweries:)”
“All the little piggies who had their snouts well dunked in the swill will be the only ones to lament the passing of these particularly odious pieces of waste.”
“Drinking anything called swill didn't appeal to Cerryl.”
“_Swill_: to swill is to drink greedily, hence to drink like a pig. ~wassailers~; from 'wassail' [A.S. _waes hael_; from _wes_, be thou, and _hál_, whole (modern English _hale_)], a form of salutation, used in drinking one's health; and hence employed in the sense of 'revelling' or 'carousing.”
“The rest of ‘em were … well, they were the kind of swill I’m well accustomed to keeping down.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘swill’.
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Alternatives to DRINK
drink is a boring word.
absorb, consume, dissipate, gulp, indulge, swallow, imbibe, sip, fill, quaff, chug, slug and 2 more...
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T'ain't going to drain no more
wordie stoppers: without refrain: stanza on its own: lotion motion: T'ain't going to drain no moor
nanopyle, nanonize, nanocosm, ombromombo, misle(ad), nanostrobos, nanomini, peerl, serein, hyetalous, pelter, sluiciest and 43 more...
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ebaysalvageyard
ebay, wood, carved, basket, ebay!, that's, expensive,, sold, junk, cheap, ripoff, snipe and 27 more...
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Lillyjames's Words
uncategorized words that I enjoy
replete, unabashed, dauntless, ubiquitous, fanged, blush, flush, murmur, mercurial, dishevelled, decrepit, raven and 146 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, S
scrunch, solace, sabotage, saccade, sacerdotal, sacrilegious, sacristy, snappy, skew, steadfast, scowl, scorch and 781 more...
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strangelyrouge's Words
glockenspiel, gewgaw, jetsam, flotsam, gripe, grab, wench, whilst, betwixt, hither, thither, yonder and 1034 more...
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whatever1013's Words
chocolate, sesquipedalophobia, discombobulated, callipygian, retronym, squirm, cobalt blue, plethora, onomatopoeia, blowhard, strumpet, shush and 173 more...
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wunderkammer's Words
smarmy, bubkes, elucidate, togs, aeolian, carp, kibosh, bosky, ramshackle, mange, harpy, effervesce and 163 more...
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Time for a new list!
abrupt, erupt, rupture, sync, appropinquity, heterochromia, homochromatic, monochromatic, willy nilly, nitty gritty, kowtow, wonton and 455 more...
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Reading Reading
Words from the works of Peter Reading - at least one from each (except the Schwitters-esque erosions, cut-ups etc).
overbright, pimpled, muskiness, effuse, stoup, maul, unlevel, viscid, perfidious, glibly, aloes, drouth and 449 more...
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Lees
Items of little or no value that are left behind by physical or biological processes other than passing through an alimentary canal. See also Valse's Leftovers and reesetee's Hogwash! for other tak...
lees, dross, dregs, orts, debris, jetsam, flotsam, rubbage, rubbish, trash, refuse, junk and 130 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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Fall Words 2009
sgraffito, maestá, tempera, size, gesso, obsolescence, hinterland, taboret, pram, amygdalate, pandect, loggia and 105 more...
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savage215's Words
pipe, yankee, knickerbocker, tennis, plasma, magma, volcano, car, truck, television, tv, word and 445 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for swill.

yarb Utterly morose
after eight of Bass,
I review the gross
sub-species and freaks
swilling at the bar.
- Peter Reading, 5x5x5x5x5, 1983 Jul 1, 2008
bilby The pigs are hungry today, oh boy. Jun 23, 2008
travismcdermott c725 Corpus Gloss. (Hessels) G3 Gargarizet, gagul suille. Jun 23, 2008
travismcdermott c725 Corpus Gloss. (Hessels) G3 Gargarizet, gagul suille. Jun 23, 2008
travismcdermott c725 Corpus Gloss. (Hessels) G3 Gargarizet, gagul suille. Jun 23, 2008