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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

swill.

A mixture of solid and liquid food scraps fed to pigs etc; especially kitchen waste for this purpose.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/swɪl/

  1. A mixture of solid and liquid food scraps fed to pigs etc; especially kitchen waste for this purpose.

    collective · countable · uncountable

  2. Any disgusting or distasteful liquid.

    broadly · countable · uncountable
    I cannot believe anyone could drink this swill.

  3. Anything disgusting or worthless.

    broadly · countable · figuratively · uncountable
    This new TV show is a worthless load of swill.

  4. A large quantity of liquid drunk at one swallow.

    countable · informal · uncountable
    He took a swill of his drink and tried to think of words.

  5. Inexpensive beer or alcohol.

    countable · informal · uncountable

  6. A badly-thrown pass.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

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.

verb/swɪl/

  1. To drink (or, rarely, eat) greedily or to excess.

    transitive

  2. To wash (something) by flooding with water.

    transitive

  3. To move (a liquid or liquid-filled vessel) in a circular motion.

    transitive

  4. To move around or over a surface.

    intransitive

  5. To inebriate; to fill with drink.

    obsolete · transitive

  6. To feed swill to (pigs).

    transitive
Where this word comes from

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.

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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.