swot
/swɑt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.67 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
One who swots; a boffin, nerd, or smart aleck.
British usage; Countable; Informal; Slang; Uncountable
noun
Vigorous study at an educational institution.
British usage; Countable; Informal; Slang; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "Are you going to swot at it all the evening?"
- "He liked Tom all right... Sampson and Bullock he could do without, however. Especially Sampson, who was too much of a grammar-school-type swot ever to be quite the thing."
- "The popular science bit goes like this. Your brain has two hemispheres, left and right. The left is the organised swot who likes bright light, keeps his bedroom tidy and can tolerate sums. Your right hemisphere is your brain on drugs: the long-haired, creative type you don't bring home to mother."
- "On first listen, Americans of a certain vintage would call one a Poindexter, while older Brits would regard the other as a swot."
- "All I want is — guerre fini, soldat fini; and to go home without burden of any thought save music, and hard swot for a time."
- "Could you do a SWOT analysis of the business proposal I sent you?"
Etymology
From a dialectal English word, from Middle English swot, swat, from Old English swāt (“perspiration; sweat”), from Proto-Germanic *swaitą (“sweat”). More at sweat.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: swot, swāt, *swait-
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /swɑt/
- British English: /swɒt/