Definition

1. Noun:

   • Waste food mixed with liquid, used as animal feed: A mixture, typically consisting of kitchen scraps, vegetable peelings, or other waste food, combined with water, sour milk, or other liquids, used to feed pigs or other livestock.
   • Cheap, low-quality alcoholic drink: Inferior or unpleasant alcoholic beverage, often consumed in large quantities.
   • An act of washing or rinsing: (Less common) The act of flushing or rinsing something out with water.

2. Verb:

   • To drink (something) greedily or in large quantities: To consume a liquid, especially an alcoholic drink, quickly and in great volume.
   • To feed swill to (an animal): To provide pigs with this type of wet feed.
   • To wash or rinse out: To clean or flush a container or area by pouring water over or through it.

Usage Examples

• Noun:

  • The farmer collected kitchen scraps to make swill for the pigs.
  • He spent the night drinking cheap swill at the bar.
  • Give the bottle a good swill to clean it. (Less common usage)

• Verb:

  • After the game, they swilled beer straight from the bottle.
  • The pigs are swilled twice a day with a mixture of grain and vegetable waste.
  • Swill out the bucket before you fill it with fresh water.

Advanced Usage

• "to swill something down": To wash something down by drinking, or to consume food/drink quickly.

  • He swilled the pills down with a glass of water.
  • They swilled down their lunch and went back to work.

• "to swill around": For a liquid to move around noisily inside a container.

  • You could hear the water swilling around in the pipes.

Variants and Related Words

• Swiller (noun): A person who drinks alcohol greedily or excessively.
  • He was known as a notorious swiller.

Synonyms

• Noun (for waste feed): Slop, mash, pigwash.
• Noun (for cheap drink): Rotgut, plonk, hooch.
• Verb (for drinking): Gulp, guzzle, quaff, chug.

Related Phrasal Verbs

• Swill down: To drink something quickly and in large amounts.

  • He can swill down a pint in seconds.

• Swill out: To rinse or clean the inside of something thoroughly with water.

  • Swill out the coffee pot before you make a fresh batch.

Related Idioms

• "Swill the drains": (British, informal) To drink alcohol, especially beer, heavily.
  • They went out to swill the drains every Friday night.

Noun

1. wet feed (especially for pigs) consisting of mostly kitchen waste mixed with water or skimmed or sour milk

Verb

1. drink large quantities of (liquid, especially alcoholic drink)
2. feed pigs