Word.ws English Dictionary

swosh

swosh is the alternative form of swash.

Meaning of swash

Verb

swash (third-person singular simple present swashes, present participle swashing, simple past and past participle swashed)

  1. (ambitransitive) To swagger; to act with boldness or bluster (toward).
    • He swashed out of the room, and presently we heard his angry voice berating his bearer.1910, Jerome Klapka Jerome, Robert Barr, Arthur Lawrence, The Idler: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine - Volume 37, page 1327
  2. (ambitransitive) To dash or flow noisily; to splash.
    • How the sea rolls swashing ‘gainst the side! Stand by for reefing, hearties!1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Moby Dick’’, chapter 40”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC
  3. (ambitransitive) To swirl through liquid; to swish.
    • The parts are swashed in the solution until they are clean and are then rinsed in cold running water.1917, The Automobile - Volume 37, page 233
  4. (intransitive) To wade forcefully through liquid.
    • Kala Nag swashed out of the water, blew his trunk clear, and began another climb; but this time he was not alone, and he had not to make his path.1894, Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book
  5. (ambitransitive) To swipe.
    • '[…] ye ill-farren, useless bowdikite!' said she, as she swashed the dishclout about my lugs,1828, The night watch; or, Tales of the sea - Volume 2, page 97
  6. (intransitive) To fall violently or noisily.
    • The Archbyshop of Yorke[…]swasht him down, meaning to thrust himselfe in betwixt the Legate, and the Archbyshop of Canterbury.1577, Raphaell Holinshed, The Laste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume II, London: […] for Iohn Hunne, →OCLC, page 444, column 2

See all 21 meanings of swash

Forms of swosh

third-person singular presentswoshes
present participleswoshing
past participleswoshed
pastswoshed

Questions about swosh

What is swosh the alternative form of?
Swosh is the alternative form of swash.

Words near swosh in the dictionary

  1. sworn to God
  2. sworn upon
  3. sworn virgin
  4. sworn virgins
  5. sworne
  6. swosh
  7. swoshed
  8. swoshes
  9. swoshing
  10. swot
  11. swot up on

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swosh (page history and authors); swash (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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Cite this entry: “swosh.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/swosh. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.