as in nerd
a person slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits
every time he begged off a night at the pub—saying he had to study—his mates teased him for being a swot
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Recent Examples of swot
John McIntyre, The Christian Science Monitor, 31 July 2023
So, swot up, then delegate.
—Barnaby Lashbrooke, Forbes, 4 May 2021
The Economist, 13 June 2020
Greenblatt might want to have a chinwag with some of his colleagues in the history department and swot up the biography of someone like Wisconsin’s Robert La Follette, a progressive populist politician perhaps more to his liking.
—Alex Beam, BostonGlobe.com, 2 May 2018
Noun
The Oxbridge and Ivy League colleges traditionally had disparaging terms for students who worked too hard and devoted themselves too diligently to learning: swot in England, grind in the United States.
—John McIntyre, The Christian Science Monitor, 31 July 2023
So, swot up, then delegate.
—Barnaby Lashbrooke, Forbes, 4 May 2021
Verb
Yamada Jun, the IT expert, became the CEO and travelled to Germany to swot up on renewables.
—The Economist, 13 June 2020
Greenblatt might want to have a chinwag with some of his colleagues in the history department and swot up the biography of someone like Wisconsin’s Robert La Follette, a progressive populist politician perhaps more to his liking.
—Alex Beam, BostonGlobe.com, 2 May 2018
Recent Examples of Synonyms for swot
Noun
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Fuller, like many a brilliant nerd, was initially awkward with her peers.—
James Marcus,
New Yorker,
2 June 2025
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Most of us would settle for Lucozade and a duvet on the settee, but Howe is Newcastle’s king nerd.—
George Caulkin,
New York Times,
29 May 2025
Verb
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Wilson said the cost of deferred infrastructure maintenance in La Jolla would be substantial, though it hadn’t been analyzed yet.—
Michael Smolens,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
8 June 2025
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When something doesn’t work, don’t punish the misstep—analyze the inputs, refine the process, and reuse the insight.—
Brent Gleeson,
Forbes.com,
8 June 2025
Noun
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Owner David Rubenstein needs to get rid of Elias (maybe Cal Ripken Jr. would agree to the job) and get baseball people instead of computer geeks to run the team.—
Reader Commentary,
Baltimore Sun,
22 May 2025
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Jon Cherry/Getty Images For years, crypto was viewed by many as a weird and fringe investment, hyped up by a bunch of math geeks and used widely by all kinds of unsavory characters, from drug dealers to hackers.—
Rafael Nam,
NPR,
19 May 2025
Verb
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In other, arguably more significant developments, the Croat deduced that Negan had squashed the Dama’s pet rat and attacked the Saviors’ former leader with Lucille 2.0.—
Charlie Mason,
TVLine,
8 June 2025
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But analysts say the main points are easy to deduce from public statements by Mr. Putin and other Russian leaders.—
Fred Weir,
Christian Science Monitor,
30 May 2025
Verb
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And though regrowing entire human limbs still seems like the distant stuff of science fiction, Monaghan said studying the signaling function of retinoic acid in these amphibians could help develop new human healing methods and gene therapies.—
Kameryn Griesser,
CNN Money,
12 June 2025
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Phillippe and Brubaker both attended the University of California, Berkeley Both Brubaker and Phillippe studied at the University of California, Berkeley, for their undergraduate degrees.—
Caroline Blair,
People.com,
12 June 2025
Verb
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Arvind Limited and Fashion for Good want to find out.—
Jasmin Malik Chua,
Sourcing Journal,
3 June 2025
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When a 6-year-old boy hadn’t been to school in weeks, deputies went to his home for a welfare check and found out his mother had killed him during an exorcism, Florida authorities said.—
Olivia Lloyd,
Miami Herald,
2 June 2025
Verb
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Thank you all for reading these recaps and having such great conversations in the comments along the way.—
Caroline Framke,
Vulture,
13 June 2025
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Outcome framing can read as cosmetic if representation metrics quietly disappear. 4.—
Heather Price,
Forbes.com,
12 June 2025
Verb
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Writing at length is to me always an act of learning and changing, in which authors can strive towards something more dimensional than a platitude on a placard.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
5 June 2025
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However, like getting abs or learning TikTok dances, a certain amount of effort must be invested to get anything worthwhile out of it.—
Anna Pulley,
Chicago Tribune,
5 June 2025
Cite this Entry
“Swot.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/swot. Accessed 18 Jun. 2025.
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