swab
/swɒb/
swab noun: a small piece of soft, absorbent material, such as gauze, used to clean wounds, apply medicine, or take samples of body fluids. Often attached to a stick or wire to aid access.
Noun
swab (plural swabs)
- A small piece of soft, absorbent material, such as gauze, used to clean wounds, apply medicine, or take samples of body fluids. Often attached to a stick or wire to aid access.
- A sample taken with a swab (piece of absorbent material).
- A piece of material used for cleaning or sampling other items like musical instruments or guns.
- A mop, especially on a ship.
- A sailor; a swabby.
- As for that swab, he's good and dead, he is.1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 25, in Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- swabby
- A naval officer's epaulet.
Verb
swab (third-person singular simple present swabs, present participle swabbing, simple past and past participle swabbed)
- To use a swab on something, or clean something with a swab.
- swab the deck of a ship
- He had one hand on the bounce bottle—and he'd never let go of that since he got back to the table—but he had a handkerchief in the other and was swabbing his deadlights with it.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VI, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
Proper noun capitalized: Swab
Swab (plural Swabs)
- A surname.
swab meaning in Tamil, Urdu and Kannada
swab in Tamil
- பஞ்சு உருட்டு, மருந்திட்ட பஞ்சுறை, ஒற்றி, சுருணை, துடைப்பு
swab in Urdu
- پوچھن لگانا
swab in Kannada
- ಹೀರೊತ್ತು, ಹತ್ತಿತುಂಡು, ಒರಸುಗೆ
Examples of swab in a sentence
- Insert a clean swab into your nose.
- Just swab her with a little more of our patented homemade poultice.
- Pancoronavirus RNA was observed in seven cases among 98 nasal swab samples.
Synonyms of swab
Forms of swab
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | swabs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | swabs |
| present participle | swabbing |
| past participle | swabbed |
| past | swabbed |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Swabs |
Origin of swab
Mid 17th century (in the sense 'mop for cleaning the decks'): back-formation from Middle English swabber (“sailor detailed to swab decks”), from Middle Dutch zwabber, from a Germanic base meaning 'splash' or 'sway', also found as nautical German Schwabber and Volga German Schwabber ("scrubber, mop, swab")
Words formed from swab
Phrases with swab
Words that rhyme with swab
Questions about swab
- What does swab mean?
- Swab means a small piece of soft, absorbent material, such as gauze, used to clean wounds, apply medicine, or take samples of body fluids. Often attached to a stick or wire to aid access.
- What is swab in Tamil?
- Swab in Tamil is பஞ்சு உருட்டு, மருந்திட்ட பஞ்சுறை, ஒற்றி. See Swab meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is swab?
- Swab can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce swab?
- Swab is pronounced /swɒb/.
- What is the plural of swab?
- The plural of swab is swabs.
Words near swab in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: swab (page history and authors); Swab (page history and authors); swab (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); swab (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); swab (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-swab.ogg.
Cite this entry: “swab.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/swab. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.