as in nerd
a person slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits
every time he begged off a night at the pub—saying he had to study—his mates teased him for being a swot
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of swot
Ruby Tandoh,
New Yorker,
25 Aug. 2025
The Oxbridge and Ivy League colleges traditionally had disparaging terms for students who worked too hard and devoted themselves too diligently to learning: swot in England, grind in the United States.
—
John McIntyre,
The Christian Science Monitor,
31 July 2023
So, swot up, then delegate.
—
Barnaby Lashbrooke,
Forbes,
4 May 2021
The Economist,
13 June 2020
Greenblatt might want to have a chinwag with some of his colleagues in the history department and swot up the biography of someone like Wisconsin’s Robert La Follette, a progressive populist politician perhaps more to his liking.
—
Alex Beam,
BostonGlobe.com,
2 May 2018
Noun
Nobody talked about the furtive ambition of the swots.
—
Ruby Tandoh,
New Yorker,
25 Aug. 2025
The Oxbridge and Ivy League colleges traditionally had disparaging terms for students who worked too hard and devoted themselves too diligently to learning: swot in England, grind in the United States.
—
John McIntyre,
The Christian Science Monitor,
31 July 2023
So, swot up, then delegate.
—
Barnaby Lashbrooke,
Forbes,
4 May 2021
Verb
Yamada Jun, the IT expert, became the CEO and travelled to Germany to swot up on renewables.
—
The Economist,
13 June 2020
Greenblatt might want to have a chinwag with some of his colleagues in the history department and swot up the biography of someone like Wisconsin’s Robert La Follette, a progressive populist politician perhaps more to his liking.
—
Alex Beam,
BostonGlobe.com,
2 May 2018
Recent Examples of Synonyms for swot
Noun
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Hunter Pence, a nerd at heart, spent money from his first paycheck to buy himself a gaming computer to play World of Warcraft.
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Design and photography nerds will appreciate the book’s beautiful layout, fun use of color, and stunning images; but this is, crucially, not the kind of book made just to look at.
Verb
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This article was generated by the Bay Area Home Report Bot, software that analyzes home sales or other data and creates an article based on a template created by humans.
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Detectives are continuing an investigation that began weeks ago, Azarcon said, and are analyzing evidence to see whether the six are linked to additional crimes.
Noun
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By now, however, most know him as the lovable, cello-playing geek Leonard Hofstadter who married the pretty blonde waitress.
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But in this literary theatre geek’s opinion—and, evidently, the voting public’s—there’s always room for more crossover acts.
Verb
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In other words, there’s not much to be deduced here, unlike the extensive notes which accompanied the release of AirPods Pro 3 last fall.
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Knowing the entire sequence — the order of all 3 billion or so of our DNA’s chemical building blocks, nearly fully deduced by the international Human Genome Project between 1990 and 2003 — hasn’t helped much.
Verb
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Lara Schwarz studies the effect of wildfires and heat waves on public health at UC Berkeley.
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Supporters argue the Bible should be studied as an essential literary text that can help students understand Western history and the founding of the US.
Verb
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Read on below to find out more about the speculation surrounding the A-list couple's wedding plans.
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Some family members even left the courtroom as Marcelle is heard asking about her children and finds out her son was killed.
Verb
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Beginning in the 2030 school year, public school students will read biblical passages and learn how the Bible affected history and literature from kindergarten to 12th grade.
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Anthropic shared a striking number alongside a new product this week, and it is being read the wrong way.
Verb
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Websites like AirHelp can assist you in learning what you’re entitled to based on your itinerary, and in claiming the compensation you’re owed.
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At age 30, Sarris uncovered the identities of his birth parents and learned of his Native heritage.
Cite this Entry
“Swot.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/swot. Accessed 27 Jun. 2026.
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