Word.ws English Dictionary

chewing sponge

chewing sponge noun: a bunch of twigs (most commonly of Salvadora persica) that were beaten until fibrous used as a traditional product for dental hygiene purposes.

chewing sponge: a bunch of twigs (most commonly of Salvadora persica) that were beaten until fibrous used as a...
Image: Darkemperror, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

chewing sponge (plural chewing sponges)

  1. (West African English) A bunch of twigs (most commonly of Salvadora persica) that were beaten until fibrous used as a traditional product for dental hygiene purposes.
    • The woman was vigorously scrubbing her teeth with a piece of chewing sponge.1988, Christine Botchway, Spears Down, London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Publishers, →ISBN, page 3
    • Her chores began in the morning with taking to Ewuraba, in a saucer, a piece of chewing sponge dipped in water to soften it somewhat.2004, Ebow Daniel, A Tale of Cape Coast, Accra: Woeli Publishing Services, →ISBN, page 26

Forms of chewing sponge

pluralchewing sponges

Origin of chewing sponge

From chewing + sponge.

Questions about chewing sponge

What does chewing sponge mean?
Chewing sponge means a bunch of twigs (most commonly of Salvadora persica) that were beaten until fibrous used as a traditional product for dental hygiene purposes.
What part of speech is chewing sponge?
Chewing sponge is a noun.
What is the plural of chewing sponge?
The plural of chewing sponge is chewing sponges.

Words near chewing sponge in the dictionary

  1. chewing off
  2. chewing on
  3. chewing on one's nails
  4. chewing out
  5. chewing over
  6. chewing sponge
  7. chewing sponges
  8. chewing stick
  9. chewing sticks
  10. chewing the cud
  11. chewing the fat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chewing sponge (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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