Swab
| v. t. | 1. | To clean with a mop or swab; to wipe when very wet, as after washing; |
| n. | 1. | A kind of mop for cleaning floors, the desks of vessels, etc., esp. one made of rope-yarns or threads. |
| 2. | A bit of sponge, cloth, or the like, fastened to a handle, for cleansing the mouth of a sick person, applying medicaments to deep-seated parts, etc. | |
| 3. | (Naut.) An epaulet. | |
| 4. | A cod, or pod, as of beans or pease. | |
| 5. | A sponge, or other suitable substance, attached to a long rod or handle, for cleaning the bore of a firearm. |
| Noun | 1. | swab - implement consisting of a small piece of cotton that is used to apply medication or cleanse a wound or obtain a specimen of a secretion |
| 2. |  swab - cleaning implement consisting of absorbent material fastened to a handle; for cleaning floors | |
| Verb | 1. | swab - wash with a swab or a mop; "swab the ship's decks" Synonyms: swob |
| 2. | swab - apply (usually a liquid) to a surface; "dab the wall with paint" |
| swab - /swob/ The PDP-11 swap byte instruction mnemonic, as
immortalised in the dd option "conv=swab". 1. To solve the NUXI problem by swapping bytes in a file. 2. The program in V7 Unix used to perform this action, or anything functionally equivalent to it. See also big-endian, little-endian, middle-endian, bytesexual. |