Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use swill in a sentence

20 example sentences · noun, verb

Swill means a mixture of solid and liquid food scraps fed to pigs etc; especially kitchen waste for this purpose. Example: “I cannot believe anyone could drink this swill.”

Examples of swill by meaning

nounAny disgusting or distasteful liquid.

  • I cannot believe anyone could drink this swill.

nounAnything disgusting or worthless.

  • This new TV show is a worthless load of swill.
  • Into this swill comes Leave financier-in-chief, Arron Banks, who last week announced he was setting up a “Patriotic Alliance” to attempt to unseat 100 Remain-supporting MPs.2017 March 27, “The Observer view on triggering article 50”, in The Observer

nounA large quantity of liquid drunk at one swallow.

  • He took a swill of his drink and tried to think of words.

nounInexpensive beer or alcohol.

  • Kesh's assistant, Wilma, wants to surprise Kesh with some bootlegged swill from Kadara.2017, BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Task: Beer Run

verbTo drink (or, rarely, eat) greedily or to excess.

  • If you can give me no more than twenty-five shillings, I'm sure I'm not going to buy you pork-pie to stuff, after you've swilled a bellyful of beer.1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter 8, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC
  • The awful judge at the trial, booze-swilling hack James Haggerty1992 February 2, Mitzel, “Clay Shaw, The Quean Network & That Kennedy Killing”, in Gay Community News, volume 19, number 28, page 6

verbTo wash (something) by flooding with water.

  • When my turn came for the bath, I asked if I might swill out the tub, which was streaked with dirt, before using it.1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XXVII, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz...

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

  • Jimmie looked lovingly at the flask, smelt it, and then, placing it next his ear, swilled it round to hear the splash of liquor.1958, Muriel Spark, chapter 6, in Robinson, New York: New Directions, published 2003, page 69

verbTo move around or over a surface.

  • It rose above the foot-board and swilled to the level of the seat.1906, Perceval Gibbon, “The Coward”, in Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases, New York: McClure, Phillips, pages 222–223
  • A flood of fads swilled over all Europe.1959, Ezra Pound, “Canto 96”, in The Cantos of Ezra Pound, New York: New Directions, published 1986, page 654

More sentences with swill

  • Pile on with more raucous singing, swaying and swilling at the DANK-Haus Oktoberfest party.2007 September 28, Beth Geraci, “A stein frenzy”, in RedEye, Chicago, Ill., page 41. From the entry lederhosed
  • The beer, named for the Taedonggang River, is a fairly full-flavoured lager that is swilled with gusto around the country.2017 May, “North Korea”, in Robin Barton, editor, Lonely Planet's Global Beer Tour (Lonely Planet Food), 1st edition, Lonely Planet Global…. From the entry Taedonggang
  • His mouth made a very serious and deliberate O as he took the food and swilled it round his mouth.2006, Imogen Parker, “July 1961”, in The Time of Our Lives, London: Bantam Press, →ISBN, page 232. From the entry porridgy
  • Brunch was the time you could order maple-syruped pancakes with your sausages and eggs and swill it down with champagne without feeling guilty.1995, Jill Gascoine, Lilian, Bath: Chivers Press, published 1996, →ISBN, page 178. From the entry maple-syruped
  • There he ordered beer from the adenoidal Chinese manager and drank the afternoon away, greedily swilling bottle after bottle, feeling gradually his adulthood return.1958, Anthony Burgess, The Enemy in the Blanket (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 344. From the entry greedily
  • Two heavy pails of swill—meat scraps floating in custard—from the school kitchens to be carried with a friend, Hans Solish, all the way to the piggery.2022, Ian McEwan, Lessons, page 99. From the entry piggery
  • The six o'clock swill was the male ritual of consuming as many beers as possible in the hour before hotels and pubs closed at six o'clock.2007, D. Kirkby, T. Luckins, Dining On Turtles: Food Feasts and Drinking in History, Springer, →ISBN, page 93. From the entry six o'clock swill
  • Swilling martinis and spewing venom, Phyllis is a particularly unappetizing gorgon, telling us at one point that an acquaintance of hers is aroused by the Heimlich maneuver.2005 July 1, Washington Post. From the entry gorgon
  • But then he lost his footing when he hit the deck, and sprawled flat in a puddle of stinking grax, a foul mixture of blood, grease, and swill.1968, Bryce Walton, Harpoon Gunner, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., page 84. From the entry grax

Meaning of swill

  1. noun A mixture of solid and liquid food scraps fed to pigs etc; especially kitchen waste for this purpose.
  2. noun Any disgusting or distasteful liquid.
  3. noun Anything disgusting or worthless.

Full definition of swill

Questions about swill in a sentence

How do you use swill in a sentence?
Swill is used as a noun and verb. For example: “I cannot believe anyone could drink this swill.”
What is a short sentence with swill?
“A flood of fads swilled over all Europe.”
What does swill mean?
Swill means a mixture of solid and liquid food scraps fed to pigs etc; especially kitchen waste for this purpose.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swill (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use swill in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/swill. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.