Word.ws English Dictionary

swally

UK/ˈswalɪ/

swally noun: the act of swallowing.

Noun

swally (plural swallies)

  1. (Northern England, Scotland, dialectal) The act of swallowing.
  2. (Northern England, Scotland, dialectal) A throat or gullet.
  3. (Scotland, informal) A drink or gulp.
    • I flung over my box and he asked if I wanted a "swally" of the South African wine bottle he held up before me.1987, Agnes Owens, Like Birds in the Wilderness
  4. (Scotland, informal) A drinking session.
    • They are the one that will keep the party going, take you on to a good late night swally and if you're lucky, hook you up with some afters.2017 December 15, Jules Boyle, “Roasters you always meet in Glasgow over Christmas”, in Glasgow Live

Verb

swally (third-person singular simple present swallys, present participle swallying, simple past and past participle swallied)

  1. (Northern England, Scotland, dialectal) To swallow (food etc).

Proper noun capitalized: Swally

Swally

  1. (obsolete) Obsolete form of Suvali.

Forms of swally

Noun
pluralswallies
alternative formswallie
alternative formswelly
alternative formswilly
alternative formswolly
Verb
third-person singular presentswallys
present participleswallying
past participleswallied
pastswallied

Origin of swally

Inherited from Northern Middle English swelgh (“throat, whirlpool, pit”), from Old English ġeswelg, swelh, from Proto-West Germanic *swelg, swalgi, from Proto-Germanic *swelgaz, *swalgiz; thus a dialectal form of swallow (noun).

Inherited from Northern Middle English sweligh, from Old English swelgan, from Proto-West Germanic *swelgan, from Proto-Germanic *swelganą; thus a dialectal form of swallow (verb).

Questions about swally

What does swally mean?
Swally means the act of swallowing.
What part of speech is swally?
Swally can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce swally?
Swally is pronounced /ˈswalɪ/ (UK).
What is the plural of swally?
The plural of swally is swallies.

Words near swally in the dictionary

  1. swallowtail
  2. swallowtailed
  3. swallowtails
  4. swallowwort
  5. swallowworts
  6. swally
  7. Swalwell
  8. swaly
  9. swam
  10. swam like a fish
  11. swam the Thames

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swally (page history and authors); Swally (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:

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