Word.ws English Dictionary

forswallow

forswallow verb: to swallow up; devour utterly; engulf.

Verb

forswallow (third-person singular simple present forswallows, present participle forswallowing, simple past and past participle forswallowed)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To swallow up; devour utterly; engulf.

Forms of forswallow

third-person singular presentforswallows
present participleforswallowing
past participleforswallowed
pastforswallowed

Origin of forswallow

From Middle English forswolewen, forswoluwen, forswolȝen, forswalȝen, forswelȝen, from Old English forswelgan, forswilgan (“to swallow up, devour, consume, absorb”), from Proto-Germanic *farswelganą, *fraswelganą (“to devour”), from Proto-Germanic *fra- + *swelganą (“to swallow”), equivalent to for- + swallow. Cognate with Dutch verzwelgen (“to engulf, swallow up”), Middle Low German vorswelgen (“to swallow up”), Middle High German verswelgen (“to swallow up”). More at for-, swallow.

Questions about forswallow

What does forswallow mean?
Forswallow means to swallow up; devour utterly; engulf.
What part of speech is forswallow?
Forswallow is a verb.
What is the past tense of forswallow?
The past tense of forswallow is forswallowed.

Words near forswallow in the dictionary

  1. forstopt
  2. forstorite
  3. forstraught
  4. Forsts
  5. forsure
  6. forswallow
  7. forswart
  8. forswarted
  9. forswat
  10. forsweal
  11. forswealing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: forswallow (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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Cite this entry: “forswallow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/forswallow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.