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Spill vs Swill - What's the difference?

spill | swill |

As nouns the difference between spill and swill

is that spill is game, activity while swill is a mixture of solid and liquid food scraps fed to pigs etc; especially kitchen waste for this purpose.

As a verb swill is

to eat or drink greedily or to excess.

spill

English

Verb

  • To drop something so that it spreads out or makes a mess; to pour.
    • I spilled some sticky juice on the kitchen floor.
  • To spread out or fall out, as above.
    • Some sticky juice spilled onto the kitchen floor.
  • * Isaac Watts
    • He was so topful of himself, that he let it spill on all the company.
  • To drop something that was intended to be caught.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , date=October 29 , author=Neil Johnston , title=Norwich 3 - 3 Blackburn , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=That should have been that, but Hart caught a dose of the Hennessey wobbles and spilled Adlene Guedioura's long-range shot.}}
  • To mar; to damage; to destroy by misuse; to waste.
  • * Puttenham
    • They [the colours] disfigure the stuff and spill the whole workmanship.
  • * Fuller
    • Spill not the morning, the quintessence of day, in recreations.
  • (obsolete) To be destroyed, ruined, or wasted; to come to ruin; to perish; to waste.
  • * Chaucer
    • That thou wilt suffer innocents to spill .
  • To cause to flow out and be lost or wasted; to shed.
  • * Dryden
    • to revenge his blood so justly spilt
  • To cover or decorate with slender pieces of wood, metal, ivory, etc.; to inlay.
    • (Spenser)
  • (nautical) To relieve a sail from the pressure of the wind, so that it can be more easily reefed or furled, or to lessen the strain.

    • Derived terms

    * spiller * spill blood * spill one's seed * spill out * spill over * spill the beans

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (countable) A mess of something that has been dropped.
  • A fall or stumble.
    • The bruise is from a bad spill he had last week.
  • A small stick or piece of paper used to light a candle, cigarette etc by the transfer of a flame from a fire.
  • * 2008 , Elizabeth Bear, Ink and Steel: A Novel of the Promethean Age :
    • Kit froze with the pipe between his teeth, the relit spill pressed to the weed within it.
  • A slender piece of anything.
  • # A peg or pin for plugging a hole, as in a cask; a spile.
  • # A metallic rod or pin.
  • (mining) One of the thick laths or poles driven horizontally ahead of the main timbering in advancing a level in loose ground.
  • The situation where sound is picked up by a microphone from a source other than that which is intended.
  • (obsolete) A small sum of money.
    • (Ayliffe)
  • (Australia, politics) A declaration that the leadership of a parliamentary party is vacant, and open for re-election. Short form of (l)

    • Quotations

    * (English Citations of "spill")

    Derived terms

    * spill one's seed * spillway * take a spill

    Anagrams

    * English ergative verbs ---- ==Norwegian Bokmål==

    Alternative forms

    * (l)

    Noun

  • game, play

    • Inflection

    Derived terms

    * (l) * (l) * (l)

    Verb

    (head)

    • See also

    * (spel) ----

    swill

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • a mixture of solid and liquid food scraps fed to pigs etc; especially kitchen waste for this purpose
  • any disgusting or distasteful liquid
    • I cannot believe anyone could drink this swill .
  • anything disgusting or worthless
    • This new TV show is a worthless load of swill .
  • a large quantity of liquid drunk at one swallow
    • He took a swill of his drink and tried to think of words.
  • (Ultimate Frisbee) A badly-thrown pass
  • Inexpensive beer

    • Verb

    (en verb)
  • to eat or drink greedily or to excess
  • * Smollett
    • Well-dressed people, of both sexes, devouring sliced beef, and swilling pork, and punch, and cider.
  • *1913 ,
  • *:If you can give me no more than twenty-five shillings, I'm sure I'm not going to buy you pork-pie to stuff, after you've swilled a bellyful of beer.
  • to wash something by flooding with water
  • * Shakespeare
    • As fearfully as doth a galled rock / O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, / Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean.
  • to inebriate; to fill with drink.
  • * Milton
    • I should be loth / To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence / Of such late wassailers.
  • to feed pigs swill
  • * 1921 , (Nephi Anderson), Dorian Chapter 8
  • *:"Carlia, have you swilled the pigs?"

    • Anagrams

    *