1
1
as in to gorge
to eat greedily or to excess
they can spend hours at the pub, drinking, chatting, and swilling
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in to drink
to swallow in liquid form
they gathered in the break room each morning to swill coffee together before the morning meeting
Synonyms & Similar Words
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of swill
Catherine Long, JSTOR Daily, 17 Jan. 2024
Near the cap, each jug had a single loop big enough for one finger to slip in—not ergonomic, but perfect for tilting it up to your mouth for a quick swill.
—Sam Stone, Bon Appétit, 20 Dec. 2023
Dennis Perkins, EW.com, 10 July 2025
Spies might swill martinis in the movies, but alcohol impairs alertness and judgment and could put you at risk, especially in an unfamiliar country.
—Nathan Diller, USA Today, 24 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for swill
Noun
Hartley connected his temperance and milk crusades in An Essay on Milk from 1842, arguing that milk produced in cities was impure not just because of its adulteration by contaminants like formaldehyde, but also because of its sourcing from urban swill sheds.
—Catherine Long, JSTOR Daily, 17 Jan. 2024
Near the cap, each jug had a single loop big enough for one finger to slip in—not ergonomic, but perfect for tilting it up to your mouth for a quick swill.
—Sam Stone, Bon Appétit, 20 Dec. 2023
Verb
Seen swilling hooch in her pajamas and stuffing herself with week-old discarded cake, Dee anticipated the guys' every insult with dead-eyed clarity.
—Dennis Perkins, EW.com, 10 July 2025
Spies might swill martinis in the movies, but alcohol impairs alertness and judgment and could put you at risk, especially in an unfamiliar country.
—Nathan Diller, USA Today, 24 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for swill
Recent Examples of Synonyms for swill
Noun
-
Brunch, cocktails, pasta and sushi are all on the way, along with African cuisine, Middle Eastern sips, seafood and steaks.—
Heidi Finley,
Charlotte Observer,
7 Jan. 2026
-
By contrast, the surgeon general’s report relies largely on secondary sources and assumes that cancer risk rises with every sip, without identifying a threshold at which harm meaningfully begins.—
Robert M. Kaplan,
STAT,
1 Jan. 2026
Noun
-
With a bald noggin and spattered in white goo, Stone looks otherworldly while defending her humanity.—
Brian Truitt,
USA Today,
29 Oct. 2025
-
This American remake of the South Korean drama Il Mare is romantic goo that’s relatively easy to resist, and its ruminations on fate, love, destiny, and luck are all pretty standard for the genre.—
Tim Grierson,
Vulture,
18 Oct. 2025
Verb
-
Of all the schemes that humans have devised to keep sea lions from gorging on the salmon of the Columbia River basin, none has worked for long.—
Katherine J. Wu,
The Atlantic,
7 Jan. 2026
-
Our collective efforts were failing as residents battled billionaires and the politicians gorging on them.—
Josh Peter,
USA Today,
20 Dec. 2025
Verb
-
Food and drink There’s no shortage of food options for hotel guests and visitors stopping by at all hours of the day.—
Condé Nast,
Condé Nast Traveler,
9 Jan. 2026
-
But generally, fewer people are seeking out these whales, so fewer are being made, partly because people are not drinking as many high-octane, high alcohol beers.—
Jay R. Brooks,
Mercury News,
9 Jan. 2026
Noun
-
Even as dusk descended, people lined up to gulp from public fountains (another blessing), to fill their water bottles, or to splash their bare skin.—
Anthony Lane,
New Yorker,
22 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
But mostly, Cronenberg jacks up his own career-long obsessions with glop and grunge and decay to fever pitch.—
Mark Olsen,
Los Angeles Times,
13 June 2025
-
Plaster bandages, the type used in bone-setting casts, go over the glop.—
Jason P. Frank,
Vulture,
28 Apr. 2025
Verb
-
Well, Sydney feasts a little bit at the end.—
Claire Messud,
Vogue,
8 Jan. 2026
-
Fat Tuesday is a tradition of feasting on rich foods before the 40-day Lenten period of fasting begins on Ash Wednesday.—
Marina Johnson,
Louisville Courier Journal,
8 Jan. 2026
Noun
-
Historically, that intergenerational conversation has come through producers sampling older records, or George Clinton rapping Rakim lyrics — not AI slop.—
Andre Gee,
Rolling Stone,
23 Oct. 2025
-
The tackier the better The dominant aesthetic of the administration comes not from antiquity but from AI slop, the tackier and more juvenile the better.—
Michelle Goldberg,
Mercury News,
23 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Swill.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/swill. Accessed 10 Jan. 2026.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share