Swill-bowl
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A drunkard. obsolete
"But nothing like to that hath been shewed since in the English church by the spiritual tyrant of Rome and his mitred termagants, at the provocation of their oiled swill-bowls and blind Balaamites. For they most cruelly brent those innocents which did but only read the testament of God in their mother-tongue; and do not yet repent them of that mischief, but continue therein."
Example
More examples"But nothing like to that hath been shewed since in the English church by the spiritual tyrant of Rome and his mitred termagants, at the provocation of their oiled swill-bowls and blind Balaamites. For they most cruelly brent those innocents which did but only read the testament of God in their mother-tongue; and do not yet repent them of that mischief, but continue therein."
Etymology
From swill + bowl.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.