swallow
/ˈswɒl.əʊ/
"swallow" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“swallow” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #8,731 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #8,731
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 4
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To cause (food, drink etc.) to pass from the mouth into the stomach; to take into the stomach through the throat.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | swallow |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈswɒl.əʊ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #8,731 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 4 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “swallow” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for swallow is 7 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈswɒl.əʊ/. Corpus data places it at rank #8,731 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for swallow, with forms such as "sawllow", "sswallow", and "swalloww". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 4 confusable-pair relationships, "swallowed", "shallow", "scallop", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English swolwen, from Old English swelgan, from Proto-West Germanic *swelgan, from Proto-Germanic *swelganą (“to swallow, revel, devour”), from Proto-Indo-European *swelk- (“to gulp”). Cognate with Dutch zwelgen (“to revel, carouse, guzzle”), Ge… The correct English form is swallow, spelled S-W-A-L-L-O-W.
Definition
- 1To cause (food, drink etc.) to pass from the mouth into the stomach; to take into the stomach through the throat.
- 2To take (something) in so that it disappears; to consume, absorb.
- 3To take food down into the stomach; to make the muscular contractions of the oesophagus to achieve this, often taken as a sign of nervousness or strong emotion.
- 4To accept easily or without questions; to believe, accept.
- 5To engross; to appropriate; usually with up.
- 6To retract; to recant.
- 7To put up with; to bear patiently or without retaliation.
Etymology
From Middle English swolwen, from Old English swelgan, from Proto-West Germanic *swelgan, from Proto-Germanic *swelganą (“to swallow, revel, devour”), from Proto-Indo-European *swelk- (“to gulp”). Cognate with Dutch zwelgen (“to revel, carouse, guzzle”), German schwelgen (“to delight, indulge”), Swedish svälja (“to swallow, gulp”), Icelandic svelgja (“to swallow”), Old English swillan, swilian (“to swill, wash out, gargle”). See also swill. The noun is from Middle English swolow, swolwe, from Old English swelh, swelg (“gulf, chasm”) and ġeswelge (“gulf, chasm, abyss, whirlpool”), both from Proto-West Germanic *swelg, *swalgi, from Proto-Germanic *swelgaz, *swalgiz. Cognate with Old English swiliġe (“pit”), Scots swelch, swellie, swallie (“an abyss in the sea, whirpool”), Middle Low German swelch (“whirlpool, eddy”), Dutch zwelg (“gorge, chasm, gullet, throat”), Old Norse svelgr (“whirlpool, current, stream”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: sawllow,sswallow,swalloww,swallwo,swalolw,swalow,swlalow,swwallow,wsallow
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of swallow - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “swallow”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-W-A-L-L-O-W - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈswɒl.əʊ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “swallowed” - see the side-by-side comparison. swallow vs swallowed
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.