different between swill vs twill

English

Etymology

From Middle English swilen (“to wash; swirl; wash away”), from Old English swillan, swilian (“to wash; wash down; swill; gargle”), from Proto-Germanic *swiljan? (“to gulp, swallow”), from Proto-Indo-European *swel- (“to drink, gulp, swallow”). Related to English swallow.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sw?l/
• Rhymes: -?l

Noun

swill (countable and uncountable, plural swills)

1. (collective) A mixture of solid and liquid food scraps fed to pigs etc; especially kitchen waste for this purpose.

   Synonyms: hogwash, slops, pigswill

2. (by extension) Any disgusting or distasteful liquid.

3. (by extension, figuratively) Anything disgusting or worthless.
4. (informal) A large quantity of liquid drunk at one swallow.

   Synonym: swig

5. (informal) Inexpensive beer or alcohol.

   Coordinate terms: hooch, rotgut

6. (Ultimate Frisbee) A badly-thrown pass.

Translations

Verb

swill (third-person singular simple present swills, present participle swilling, simple past and past participle swilled)

1. (transitive) To drink (or, rarely, eat) greedily or to excess.
   • 1771, Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, Dublin: P. Wogan, 1793, Volume I, p. 130,^[2]

     […] well-dressed people, of both sexes, […] devouring sliced beef, and swilling port, and punch, and cider […]

   • 1820, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, Chapter 21,^[3]

     “It is time lost,” muttered Cedric apart and impatiently, “to speak to him of aught else but that which concerns his appetite! […] he hath no pleasure save to fill, to swill, and to call for more. […] ”

   • 1913, D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, chapter 8

   • 1944, Rutherford George Montgomery (as Al Avery), A Yankee Flier in Italy, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, Chapter 1, p. 9,^[4]

     O’Malley answered calmly as he shoved half of the pie into his mouth.

     “Stop! Stop—swilling that pie!” the colonel roared.

2. (transitive) To wash (something) by flooding with water.
   • c. 1598, William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act III, Scene 1,^[5]

     As fearfully as doth a galled rock

     O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,

     Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.

   • 1860, George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Book 3, Chapter 6,^[6]

     Already, at three o’clock, Kezia, the good-hearted, bad-tempered housemaid, who regarded all people that came to the sale as her personal enemies, the dirt on whose feet was of a peculiarly vile quality, had begun to scrub and swill with an energy much assisted by a continual low muttering […]

   • 1933, George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz, Chapter 27, p. 197,^[7]

     When my turn came for the bath, I asked if I might swill out the tub, which was streaked with dirt, before using it.

3. (transitive) To move (a liquid or liquid-filled vessel) in a circular motion.
   • 1958, Muriel Spark, Robinson, New York: New Directions, 2003, Chapter 6, p. 69,^[8]

     Jimmie looked lovingly at the flask, smelt it, and then, placing it next his ear, swilled it round to hear the splash of liquor.

   • 2004, Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty, London: Picador, Chapter 14, p. 422,^[9]

     He swilled round the whisky in his glass […]

4. (intransitive, of a liquid) To move around or over a surface.
   • 1906, Perceval Gibbon, “The Coward” in Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases, New York: McClure, Phillips, pp. 222-223,^[10]

     […] before them, between the high banks of the Vaal, they saw only a world of brown water, streaked with white froth, hurling down upon them. It rose above the foot-board and swilled to the level of the seat.

   • 1959, Ezra Pound, “Canto 96” in The Cantos of Ezra Pound, New York: New Directions, 1986, p. 654,^[11]

     A flood of fads swilled over all Europe.

   • 2000, Hanif Kureishi, “Goodbye, Mother” in Granta 69, Spring 2000, p. 119,^[12]

     The smell, the internal workings of every human being, the shit, blood, mucus swilling in a bag of flesh, made him mad. He felt he was wearing the glasses the stage hypnotist had given people, but instead of seeing them naked, he saw their inner physiology, their turbulence, their death.

5. (transitive, obsolete) To inebriate; to fill with drink.
   • 1634, John Milton, Comus, London: Humphrey Robinson, 1637, p. ,^[13]

     […] I should be loath

     To meet the rudenesse, and swill’d insolence

     Of such late Wassailers;

   • 1858, “A Primary Election at Peter Cooper’s Funny Little Grocery-Groggery,” Stephen H. Branch’s Alligator, Volume I, No. 13, 17 July, 1858, p. 2,^[14]

     Have I not kept open house for three days and nights, and swilled yourself and comrades with liquor for a week, and haven’t you all been drunk at my expense for several days?

6. (transitive) To feed swill to (pigs).
   • 1921, Nephi Anderson, Dorian, Salt Lake City, Chapter 8, p. 84,^[15]

Anagrams

• Wills, wills

English

Alternative forms

• tweel

Etymology

From Middle English twyll, twylle, from Old English twilic (“two-threaded”), a partial calque of Latin bilix, bilic-, from bis (“twice”) + licium (“thread”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tw?l/
• Rhymes: -?l
• Homophone: 'twill

Noun

twill (countable and uncountable, plural twills)

1. (weaving) A pattern, characterised by diagonal ridges, created by the regular interlacing of threads of the warp and weft during weaving.
   • 1973, P. R. Lord, M. H. Mohamed, Weaving: Conversion of Yarn to Fabric, 2nd Edition, page 167,

     The twill weave is always given a direction; a right-hand twill is one in which the twill line runs from bottom left to top right and a left-hand twill is one in which the twill line runs from bottom right to top left. The angle of the twill is determined by the amount of shift in the points of interlacing.

   • 2000, Walter S. Sondhelm, 4: Technical fabric structures - 1. Woven fabrics, A. Richard Horrocks, Subhash C. Anand (editors), Handbook of Technical Textiles, page 68,

     Industrial uses of twill fabrics are mainly restricted to simple twills and only simple twills are described here. Broken twills, waved twills, herringbone twills and elongated twills are extensively used for suiting and dress fabrics.

   • 2002, Dianne Rose Jackman, Mary K. Dixon, Jill Condra, The Guide to Textiles for Interiors, page 98,

     Herringbone fabrics are a twill variation having the twill line reversed at regular intervals.

2. A cloth or portion of cloth woven in such a pattern.
   • 2006, Mark Montano, Carly Sommerstein, Window Treatments and Slipcovers For Dummies, page 33,

     Plain cotton twills, such as canvas, sailcloth, and denim, in mediumweight fabrics, can be a good choice for informal rooms that receive considerable wear and tear, such as rec rooms, dens, playrooms, or children's bedrooms.

Derived terms

• twill tape

Translations

Verb

twill (third-person singular simple present twills, present participle twilling, simple past and past participle twilled)

1. (transitive) To weave (cloth, etc.) so as to produce the appearance of diagonal lines or ribs on the surface.

Derived terms

• twilled