Word.ws English Dictionary

swallow one's words

swallow one's words verb: to be forced to retract a prior statement after it has been shown to be disproven; to take back what one has said.

Verb

swallow one's words (third-person singular simple present swallows one's words, present participle swallowing one's words, simple past and past participle swallowed one's words)

  1. To be forced to retract a prior statement after it has been shown to be disproven; to take back what one has said.
  2. To speak at a low volume due to uncertainty about one's speech; to mumble.

Forms of swallow one's words

third-person singular presentswallows one's words
present participleswallowing one's words
past participleswallowed one's words
pastswallowed one's words

Questions about swallow one's words

What does swallow one's words mean?
Swallow one's words means to be forced to retract a prior statement after it has been shown to be disproven; to take back what one has said.
What part of speech is swallow one's words?
Swallow one's words is a verb.
What is the past tense of swallow one's words?
The past tense of swallow one's words is swallowed one's words.

Words near swallow one's words in the dictionary

  1. swallow dives
  2. swallow down
  3. swallow hole
  4. swallow holes
  5. swallow one's pride
  6. swallow one's words
  7. swallow tanager
  8. swallow tanagers
  9. swallow the anchor
  10. swallow the dictionary
  11. swallow the leek

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swallow one's words (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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