Word.ws English Dictionary

swob

swob is the dated form of swab.

Meaning of swab

Noun

swab (plural swabs)

  1. 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.
  2. A sample taken with a swab (piece of absorbent material).
  3. A piece of material used for cleaning or sampling other items like musical instruments or guns.
  4. A mop, especially on a ship.
  5. (slang) 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
  6. (slang) A naval officer's epaulet.

See all 8 meanings of swab

Forms of swob

Noun
pluralswobs
Verb
third-person singular presentswobs
present participleswobbing
past participleswobbed
pastswobbed

Words formed from swob

Questions about swob

What is swob the dated form of?
Swob is the dated form of swab.

Words near swob in the dictionary

  1. SWMBO
  2. SWMBOs
  3. SWMs
  4. SWN
  5. Swoap
  6. swob
  7. swobbed
  8. swobber
  9. swobbers
  10. swobbing
  11. Swoboda

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swob (page history and authors); swab (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: “swob.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/swob. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.