subs. (once literary: now vulgar or colloquial).—1.  The throat: also SWALLOW-PIPE; (2) the act of swallowing; and (3) a mouthful: hence (4) taste, relish, inclination, or capacity. As verb = to receive, endure, or embrace credulously, patiently, without examination, scruple or reserve; occasionally TO SWALLOW WHOLE. (B. E.). Hence SWALLOWABLE = credible.

1

  1596.  SHAKESPEARE, King John, iv. 2. 195.

        I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth SWALLOWING a tailor’s news.
  Ibid. (1603), Measure for Measure, iii. 1. 235. Duke. Left her … SWALLOWED his vows whole, pretending, in her, discoveries of dishonour.

2

  1613.  PURCHAS, Pilgrimage, 92. The mother (not able to SWALLOW her shame and griefe) cast her selfe into the lake to bee swallowed of the water.

3

  1616–25.  The Court and Times of James the First, ii. 442. [A man] SWALLOWS indignities.

4

  1690.  LOCKE, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, IV. xx. 4. Here men … must … SWALLOW down opinions as silly people do empiric pills, without knowing what they are made of.

5

  1703.  FARQUHAR, The Inconstant, iii. 1. I have SWALLOW’D my words already, I have eaten them up.

6

  1796.  WOLCOT (‘Peter Pindar’), Works, 147.

        And that each paunch, with guttling, was so swelled,
  Not one bit more could pass your SWALLOW-PIPE.

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  1834.  J. WILSON, Noctes Ambrosianæ, Dec. Attend to the differences between a civilized SWALLOW and a barbarous bolt.

8

  1841.  Punch, i. 169. Men with SWALLOWS like Thames Tunnels, in fact accomplished gaggers and unrivalled wiry watchers.

9

  1849.  MAITLAND, Essays on the Reformation, 315. An anecdote in its hundredth edition, and its most mitigated and SWALLOWABLE form.

10

  1885.  A. H. BUCK, A Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences, v. 4. A SWALLOW or two of hot milk sometimes aids in coughing up tenacious mucus.

11

  1899.  WESTCOTT, David Harum, xxiii. She took a SWALLOW of the wine. ‘How do you like it?’ asked David.

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  PHRASES.—‘One SWALLOW does not make a spring’ (HEYWOOD, 1546 = proverbial); TO SWALLOW A SPIDER = to become a bankrupt (RAY); ‘You say true; will you SWALLOW my knife?’ (a sarcastic retort on an impossible story); TO SWALLOW A TAVERN TOKEN = to get drunk; TO SWALLOW THE CACKLE = to learn a part (theatrical); ‘He has SWALLOWED a stake, and cannot stoop’ (of a very upright unbending person).

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  1598.  JONSON, Every Man in his Humour, i. 3. Cob. Drunk, sir! you hear not me say so; perhaps he SWALLOWED A TAVERN-TOKEN, or some such device.

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