Word.ws English Dictionary

swabful

swabful noun: as much as a swab holds.

Noun

swabful (plural swabfuls)

  1. As much as a swab holds.
    • The caterpillars may be trapped in their tents in early morning or late afternoon and extinguished with a swabful of kerosene.1902 June 1, “Spraying”, in Woodland & Roadside, volume 1, number 2, page 3
    • Go over the paper which has been laid down on a board or table top, several times with a swabful of the solution.1915, Edwin George Lutz, Practical Drawing, page 232

Examples of swabful in a sentence

  • A swabful of each mixture was smeared onto MacConkey Agar plates containing a single appropriate antibiotic and 250 μg of sodium azide per ml.1971, Infection and Immunity - Volume 3, page 412:
  • […] swabfuls of blood and threw them on the floor like he was trying to stem the Niagara Falls.2004, Sam North, The Unnumbered, page 63:

Forms of swabful

pluralswabfuls

Origin of swabful

From swab + -ful.

Questions about swabful

What does swabful mean?
Swabful means as much as a swab holds.
How do you use swabful in a sentence?
A swabful of each mixture was smeared onto MacConkey Agar plates containing a single appropriate antibiotic and 250 μg of sodium azide per ml.
What part of speech is swabful?
Swabful is a noun.
What is the plural of swabful?
The plural of swabful is swabfuls.

Words near swabful in the dictionary

  1. swabby
  2. Swabe
  3. Swabes
  4. Swabey
  5. Swabeys
  6. swabful
  7. swabfuls
  8. Swabia
  9. Swabian
  10. Swabian Turkey
  11. Swabianness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swabful (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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