swallow

1.
v. & n.
—v.
1 tr. cause or allow (food etc.) to pass down the throat.
2 intr. perform the muscular movement of the oesophagus required to do this.
3 tr. a accept meekly; put up with (an affront etc.). b accept credulously (an unlikely assertion etc.).
4 tr. repress; resist the expression of (a feeling etc.) (swallow one's pride).
5 tr. articulate (words etc.) indistinctly.
6 tr. (often foll. by up) engulf or absorb; exhaust; cause to disappear.
—n.
1 the act of swallowing.
2 an amount swallowed in one action.
Phrases and idioms:
swallow-hole Brit. = sink-hole (see SINK n. 6).
Derivatives:
swallowable adj. swallower n.
Etymology: OE swelg (n.), swelgan (v.) f. Gmc
2.
n. any of various migratory swift-flying insect-eating birds of the family Hirundinidae, esp. Hirundo rustica, with a forked tail and long pointed wings.
Phrases and idioms:
one swallow does not make a summer a warning against a hasty inference from one instance. swallow-dive a dive with the arms outspread until close to the water. swallow-tail
1 a deeply forked tail.
2 anything resembling this shape.
3 any butterfly of the family Papilionidae with wings extended at the back to this shape. swallow-tailed having a swallow-tail.
Etymology: OE swealwe f. Gmc