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Swill   Listen
verb
Swill  v. i.  To drink greedily or swinishly; to drink to excess.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Swill" Quotes from Famous Books



... figs, as they are called in books) were ripe, these Indians would go upland to feed on the fruit. During his sojourn with them Cabeza de Vaca went along. He describes how the Indians would dig a hole in the ground, squeeze the fruit out of tunas into the hole, and then swill up big drinks of it. Long ago the Indians vanished, but prickly pears still flourish over millions of acres of land. The prickly pear is one of the characteristic growths of the Southwest. Strangers look at it and regard it as odd. Painters ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie

... too, a crusade against the swill-milk dealers, and the men who had allowed all this to be possible. "What is the Health Board about, that poison for children can be sold in the public streets?" "Where is the District Attorney, that prosecutions for the public good ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... mail. Out here in the wilderness we do not often see nice papers; but then we see what city people never see—plenty of Indians. Many of them are very poor, and so hungry that they pick bread and scraps of meat out of the swill barrels to eat—old stuff that the soldiers have thrown away. I think people should send the poor Indians something to eat. I send you a picture of some Indians as they look hunting for food this cold ...
— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... the one against the other, prepare all day for the evening, and all evening for the next day. And, above all, it is here that your overwalker fails of comprehension. His heart rises against those who drink their curacoa in liqueur glasses, when he himself can swill it in a brown john. He will not believe that the flavour is more delicate in the smaller dose. He will not believe that to walk this unconscionable distance is merely to stupefy and brutalise himself, and come ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... together like real human beings. I found they could speak my language better than my lesson-book try at theirs—yes, as well as I can speak it myself—and that made it all the easier. After a while I mentioned the war. They were very amiable and they didn't begin to call me a swill-eating land-shark or any other of the pretty names I've heard they are so fond of using. 'We want to keep what is ours,' they said. 'Your side will have to start the fight by crossing the line. We ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... himself is to be there, Highness of Hessen-Darmstadt, and who not; all are impatient to drink your health!' Mentzel had a glorious dinner; still more glorious drink,—Prince Karl and the others, it is said, egging him into much wild bluster and gasconade, to season their much wine. Eminent swill of drinking, with the loud coarse talk supposable, on the part of Mentzel and consorts did go on, in this manner, all afternoon: in the evening, drunk Mentzel came out for air; went strutting and staggering about; emerging finally on the platform ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... my bit of that in my time, too. I've had jobs to do that a self-respecting swill-hustler wouldn't touch. I've sworn I wouldn't do 'em. And I've done 'em, rather than lose my job. Just as young Banneker ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... thus goa on to swill, They'll not want Wilfrid Lawson's bill, For give a druffen chap his fill, An sooin off pops he; An teetotal fowk moor surely still, Will dee ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley

... went again to the soap and water and Myra looking through the crack of the door, saw Tess dragging madly at her hair, sopping it first in the pan and then in the deep bucket which Ezra used to give the pig their swill. Once Myra saw the mass of gold disappear into the pail, and when Tessibel came again to view she was sputtering, coughing, and blowing the cold water from her nose ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... with fair ones to hearten him still. This sings to him, t'other, when cheer him would be, Revives him forthright with the cups he doth fill; And whenever from one he hath need of a kiss, Long draughts from his lips, at his case, he doth swill. God bless them! Right sweet has my day with them been, And wonder delightsome and void of all ill! We drank of the wine cup, both mingled and pure, And agreed whoso slept, we ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous

... take four platefuls! 'I can never bear the sight of them since,' she added pathetically. Another—a gentleman—told me vegetarianism was 'no good for him, at any rate, for one week he swallowed "pailfuls of swill," and never felt satisfied!' While yet a third—no, it was his anxious wife on his behalf—complained that 'he could not take enough of "that food" to keep up his strength.' He had three platefuls of the thickest soup that could be contrived, ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill

... heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... think my master means to die shortly, For he hath given to me all his goods:[152] And yet, methinks, if that death were near, He would not banquet, and carouse, and swill Amongst the students, as even now he doth, Who are at supper with such belly-cheer As Wagner ne'er beheld in all his life. See, where they come! belike the feast ...
— The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe

... low exclamation; the water, which had fled from us as we moved, seeming glad to pass us by and rush again on its race undisturbed, stood still. From the swill came quiet, out of the shimmer a mirror disentangled itself, and lay there on the sea, smooth and bright. But it grew dull in an instant; I heard the sails flap, but saw them no more. A dense white vapour ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... nothing else, so I may sleep. When I say, quoth Rondibilis, that wine abateth lust, my meaning is, wine immoderately taken; for by intemperance, proceeding from the excessive drinking of strong liquor, there is brought upon the body of such a swill-down bouser, a chillness in the blood, a slackening in the sinews, a dissipation of the generative seed, a numbness and hebetation of the senses, with a perversive wryness and convulsion of the muscles, all which are great lets ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport

... immovable. His eyes roved from bottle to bottle. He was debating, and he argued like this: Jolyon drinks a glass, perhaps two, he's so careful of himself. James, he can't take his wine nowadays. Nicholas—Fanny and he would swill water he shouldn't wonder! Soames didn't count; these young nephews —Soames ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... loudes' grunt In de horg-lot down to de littles' runt, Lak as ef he'd 'nounce whilst he gulps 'is swill, "A pompious horg is as big as 'is will." An' he ain't by 'isself in dat, in dat— No, he ain't by ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... were some tree handy to rope it 'round. Gonna take th' Yankees some doin' to git all them back into place." He laughed. "Drew, 'member that time we took them river steamers an' had us a real feed? Times when I was in that Yankee stockade eatin' th' swill they called rations I used to dream 'bout them pickles an' canned peaches an' crackers with long sweetin' poured ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton

... wheelbarrow and balancing a swill-tub on his head, meets an officer walking out in ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... wall, as is the custom among mountain housewives. The good-natured husband now advanced cheerfully to lend a hand in removing it into the middle of the room. It was when one of the table-legs overturned the swill-pail that the long pent-up storm burst in a torrent of invective. The prospect of spending several days here was a very gloomy outlook, and the relief was great when it was proposed to pay a visit to Neighbor Case, whose house was in the nearest valley, ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... Course notes I can differentiate between no fewer than thirty-four different types of rissole. Unfortunately we already have a Messing Officer of deadly efficiency. He can classify dripping by instinct. He can memorise at sight all the revolting contents of a swill-tub. My rissole lore is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various

... hereby summoned to appear ... for violating Section Two Hundred and Forty-eight of Article Twelve of Chapter Twenty of the Health Ordinances in that you did upon the seventh day of May, 1920, fail to keep a certain tin receptacle used for swill or garbage, in shape and form a barrel, within the building occupied and owned by you until proper time for its removal and failed to securely bundle, tie up and pack the newspapers and other light refuse and rubbish contained therein, ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... booze, swill, soak, guzzle, lush, bib, or swig. In the individual, toping is regarded with disesteem, but toping nations are in the forefront of civilization and power. When pitted against the hard-drinking Christians the abstemious Mahometans go down like grass before the scythe. ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... scream was not repeated. Little by little Auntie's uneasiness passed off and she began to doze. She dreamed of two big black dogs with tufts of last year's coat left on their haunches and sides; they were eating out of a big basin some swill, from which there came a white steam and a most appetising smell; from time to time they looked round at Auntie, showed their teeth and growled: "We are not going to give you any!" But a peasant in a fur-coat ran out of the house and drove them away with a whip; then Auntie went ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... "Forging to the Front." Too often they are the sordid story of a few scrambling over the heads of the weaker ones. Sometimes they are the story of one pig crowding the other pigs out of the trough and cornering all the swill! ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette

... heart to any one, for when I would sometimes rebuke them a little for their evil lives, drunkenness, and foul and godless language, they would immediately say: 'Well, how is this, there is a sow converted. Run, boys, to the brewer's, and bring some swill for a converted sow,' words which went through my heart, made me sorrowful and closed my mouth. But I see that God still thinks of me and loves me, now that he causes me to see and converse with such people as you." We told her ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... cheese-consuming world. A., having invested his entire capital in the construction and equipment of a factory, will be quite likely, when B., C., and D. erect factories in his immediate neighborhood, to hold his peace when sundry varieties of swill milk are offered at his door, instead of speaking out an equivocal protest against the insult thus offered to his professional pride and ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... had to swill the pigs: else I'd been here; But we've the old fashion in this house; you draw, I keep the score. Well, what's ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)

... them wheat, And they will acorns eat; 'Twere simple fury, still, thyself to waste On such as have no taste! To offer them a surfeit of pure bread, Whose appetites are dead! No, give them graines their fill, Husks, draff, to drink and swill. If they love lees, and leave the lusty wine, Envy them not their palate with ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... He took challenge and embrac'd the bowl; With pleasure swill'd the gold, nor ceased to draw Till he the ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... like a bairn— But burned the workin'-plans last run wi' all I hoped to earn. Ye know how hard an Idol dies, an' what that meant to me— E'en tak' it for a sacrifice acceptable to Thee.... Below there! Oiler! What's your wark? Ye find her runnin' hard? Ye needn't swill the cap wi' oil—this isn't the Cunard. Ye thought? Ye are not paid to think. Go, sweat that off again! Tck! Tck! It's deeficult to sweer nor tak' The Name in vain! Men, ay an' women, call me stern. Wi' these to oversee Ye'll note I've little ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling

... Rambler," said the old man. "He's been, at my swill-pail again. Staying at Rocketts, be ye? ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling

... the Giant; 'there's a cure for this too.' So he called on his hill-borer to come and bore through the mountain, that the stream-sucker might creep through and take another swill; but just as they had made a hole through the hill, and the stream-sucker was about to drink, the Mastermaid told the Prince to throw overboard a drop or two out of the flask, and then the sea was just as full as ever, and before the stream-sucker could take another gulp, they reached the land ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... reason!" Jurgen raged: "why, but what nonsense you are talking! Were there a bit of truth in your silly puppetry this world of time and space and consciousness would be a bubble, a bubble which contained the sun and moon and the high stars, and still was but a bubble in fermenting swill! I must go cleanse my mind of all this foulness. You would have me believe that men, that all men who have ever lived or shall ever live hereafter, that even I am of no importance! Why, there would be no justice in any such arrangement, ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... of his, one Bob Still, would come in; and then they would occupy the sentry-box together, and swill their beer in concert. This pot-friend of Danby was portly as a dray-horse, and had a round, sleek, oily head, twinkling eyes, and moist red cheeks. He was a lusty troller of ale-songs; and, with his mug in his hand, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... towns and cities, where the object is too often to feed for the largest quantity, without reference to quality, an article known as distillers' swill, or still-slop, is extensively used. This, if properly fed in limited quantities, in combination with other and more bulky food, may be a valuable article for the dairyman; but, if given—as it too often is—without the ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... You may bring two quarts at once, Welzel! I pay. Perhaps you think I haven't got the needful. You're wrong, then. If we wanted we could sit an' drink your best brandy an' swill coffee till to-morrow morning with ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... from this very place, on the sand and the shingle dry, He lay, with his batter'd face upturned to the frowning sky. When your waters wash'd and swill'd high over his drowning head, When his nostrils and lungs were filled, when his feet and hands were as lead, When against the rock he was hurl'd, and suck'd again to the sea, On the shores of another world, on the brink of eternity, On the verge of annihilation, did it come to that swimmer ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... are no longer the same Moor. Do you remember how, a thousand times, bottle in hand, you made game of the miserly old governor, bidding him by all means rake and scrape together as much as he could, for that you would swill it all down your throat? Don't you remember, eh?—don't you remember?' O you good-for-nothing, miserable braggart! that was speaking like a man, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... kitchen-waste of boarding-houses, hotels, and private families. The quantity of good, wholesome food which these carts brought away to be fed to pigs was incredible. It was a common thing to see whole loaves of bread taken out of the family swill-tub, with joints of meat not half eaten, sound vegetables, and fragments of other food, as palatable and valuable as the portion that had been consumed on the table. It seemed as if there were hundreds ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... publican's till, and his casket is a cask; pewter is his precious metal, and his pearl is a mixture of gin and beer. The dew of his youth comes from Ben Nevis, and the comfort of his soul is cordial gin. He is a walking barrel, a living drain-pipe, a moving swill-tub. They say "loath to drink and loath to leave off," but he never needs persuading to begin, and as to ending that is out of the question ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... throb, your hollow tooth will rage; Sauntering in coffeehouse is Dulman seen; He damns the climate, and complains of spleen. Meanwhile the South, rising with dabbled wings, A sable cloud athwart the welkin flings, That swill'd more liquor than it could contain, And, like a drunkard, gives it up again. Brisk Susan whips her linen from the rope, While the first drizzling shower is borne aslope; Such is that sprinkling which some careless quean Flirts on you from her mop, but not so clean: You fly, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... content; For no dark gesture I discern'd in any. I saw through hunger Ubaldino grind His teeth on emptiness; and Boniface, That wav'd the crozier o'er a num'rous flock. I saw the Marquis, who tad time erewhile To swill at Forli with less drought, yet so Was one ne'er sated. I howe'er, like him, That gazing 'midst a crowd, singles out one, So singled him of Lucca; for methought Was none amongst them took such note of me. Somewhat I heard him whisper of Gentucca: The ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... pigeon, which made a dinner for nine; after that we found the skin of a deer, from the knee to the hoof. This we divided and ate. I would willingly, had I possessed it, have given my hat full of gold for a piece of bread as large as my hand. Often did I think of the milk and swill I had seen left in my father's hog-trough, and thought if I only had that I ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson



Words linked to "Swill" :   feed, imbibe, slop, pigwash, pigswill, swill down



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