swallow

1 verb

1 FOOD (T) to make food or drink go down your throat and towards your stomach: He swallowed the last of his coffee and asked for the bill.

2 NERVOUSLY (I) to make this kind of movement with your throat, especially because you are nervous: Leo swallowed hard and walked into the interview.

3 BELIEVE/ACCEPT (T) informal to immediately believe a story, explanation etc that is not actually true: swallow sth whole (=believe something without asking questions): Her excuse was obviously a lie, but Eric swallowed it whole. | hard to swallow (=difficult to believe): I find those old superstitions hard to swallow.

4 FEELINGS (T) to stop yourself from showing your feelings: Daisy tried hard to swallow her doubts.

5 swallow your pride to ignore your feelings and do something that is very embarrassing for you because you have no choice: When Ken lost his job he had to swallow his pride and borrow money.

—see also: a bitter pill (to swallow) bitter 1 (7) swallow sb/sth up phrasal verb (transitive usually passive)

1 if something such as a company or a country is swallowed up by a large company, organization etc it becomes part of it and no longer exists on its own: Their company was swallowed up by a multinational.

2 if something such as an amount of money is swallowed up by something else, it is made to disappear completely: I got a pay rise, but it was swallowed up by the increase in train fares.

2 noun (C)

1 a small bird with a tail that comes to northern countries in the summer

2 an act of making food go down your throat: He downed his whisky in one swallow.