swot

• swat

From a dialectal English word, from Middle English swot, swat, from Old English swāt (“perspiration; sweat”), from Proto-Germanic *swaitą (“sweat”). More at sweat.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /swɒt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /swɑt/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /swɔt/

  • Audio (General Australian):

    (file)

• Homophone: swat
• Rhymes: -ɒt

swot (third-person singular simple present swots, present participle swotting, simple past and past participle swotted)

1. (intransitive, slang, UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) To study with effort or determination. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

   Synonym: cram

swot (countable and uncountable, plural swots) (slang, British)

1. One who swots; a boffin, nerd, or smart aleck.
   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, page 23:

     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.

   • 2006 April 18, Philip Beadle, “Mind maps: rubbish in theory, but handy in practice”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     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.

   • 2023 August 8, Janan Ganesh, “The oneness of Ron DeSantis and Rishi Sunak”, in Financial Times‎^[2]:

     On first listen, Americans of a certain vintage would call one a Poindexter, while older Brits would regard the other as a swot.

2. Work.
   • Quoted in 1983, Ivor Gurney, Robert Kelsey Rought Thornton, War Letters: A Selection (page 254)

     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.

3. Vigorous study at an educational institution.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

• OTWs, Stow, TOWs, Tows, ow'st, stow, tows, twos, wost, wots

• IPA^(key): /swoːt/
• Rhymes: -ōt

swōt

1. synonym of swēte (“sweet”)

• swoot

From Old Frisian swart, from Proto-West Germanic *swart. Cognates include German schwarz and West Frisian swart.

• IPA^(key): /svɔt/
• Hyphenation: swot
• Rhymes: -ɔt

swot (masculine swotten, feminine, plural or definite swotte, comparative swotter, superlative swotst)

1. black

• Marron C. Fort (2015), “swot”, in Saterfriesisches Wörterbuch mit einer phonologischen und grammatischen Übersicht, Buske, →ISBN