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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

swab.

A small piece of soft, absorbent material, such as gauze, used to clean wounds, apply medicine, or take samples of body fluids. Often attached to a stick or wire to aid access.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/swɒb/

  1. A small piece of soft, absorbent material, such as gauze, used to clean wounds, apply medicine, or take samples of body fluids. Often attached to a stick or wire to aid access.

  2. A sample taken with a swab (piece of absorbent material).

  3. A piece of material used for cleaning or sampling other items like musical instruments or guns.

  4. A mop, especially on a ship.

  5. A sailor; a swabby.

    slang

  6. A naval officer's epaulet.

    slang
Where this word comes from

Mid 17th century (in the sense 'mop for cleaning the decks'): back-formation from Middle English swabber (“sailor detailed to swab decks”), from Middle Dutch zwabber, from a Germanic base meaning 'splash' or 'sway', also found as nautical German Schwabber and Volga German Schwabber ("scrubber, mop, swab")

verb/swɒb/

  1. To use a swab on something, or clean something with a swab.

    transitive
    swab the deck of a ship
Where this word comes from

Mid 17th century (in the sense 'mop for cleaning the decks'): back-formation from Middle English swabber (“sailor detailed to swab decks”), from Middle Dutch zwabber, from a Germanic base meaning 'splash' or 'sway', also found as nautical German Schwabber and Volga German Schwabber ("scrubber, mop, swab")

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.