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swallow

Pronunciation: /ˈswɒl.əʊ/

The English word “swallow” has 14 meanings listed here.

verb

  1. To cause (food, drink etc.) to pass from the mouth into the stomach; to take into the stomach through the throat.
  2. To take (something) in so that it disappears; to consume, absorb.
  3. To take food down into the stomach; to make the muscular contractions of the oesophagus to achieve this, often taken as a sign of nervousness or strong emotion.
  4. To accept easily or without questions; to believe, accept.
  5. To engross; to appropriate; usually with up.
  6. To retract; to recant.
  7. To put up with; to bear patiently or without retaliation.
  8. To swallow semen after oral sex, as opposed to spitting it out.

noun

  1. The amount swallowed in one gulp; the act of swallowing.
  2. A deep chasm or abyss in the earth.
  3. The mouth and throat; that which is used for swallowing; the gullet.
  4. The opening in a pulley block between the sheave and shell through which the rope passes.
  5. Any of various carbohydrate-based dishes that are swallowed without much chewing, commonly paired and eaten with various types of soup.
  6. A small, migratory bird of the Hirundinidae family with long, pointed, moon-shaped wings and a forked tail which feeds on the wing by catching insects.

Etymology

From Middle English swolwen, from Old English swelgan, from Proto-West Germanic *swelgan, from Proto-Germanic *swelganą (“to swallow, revel, devour”), from Proto-Indo-European *swelk- (“to gulp”). Cognate with Dutch zwelgen (“to revel, carouse, guzzle”), German schwelgen (“to delight, indulge”), Danish svælge (“to swallow”), Norwegian Bokmål svelge (“to swallow”), Norwegian Nynorsk svelgje (“to…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.