Noun
every time he begged off a night at the pub—saying he had to study—his mates teased him for being a swot
Recent Examples on the Web
Noun
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
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'swot.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
Noun
English dialect, sweat, from Middle English swot, from Old English swāt — more at sweat
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