swallow one's words

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Take back what one said, as in If they win I'll have to swallow my words. George Farquhar used this idiom in The Inconstant (1702): “I have swallowed my words already; I have eaten them up.” For a synonym, see eat one's words.

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QUIZ YOURSELF ON "IS" VS. "ARE"

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Question 1 of 7

IS and ARE are both forms of which verb?

have

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Words nearby swallow one's words

swallow, swallow dive, swallow hole, swallowing reflex, swallow one's pride, swallow one's words, swallowtail, swallow-tailed, swallow-tailed coat, swallow-tailed kite, swallow-tanager

How to use swallow one's words in a sentence

In other words, fluoride is a broad-spectrum, bipartisan, long-lasting magnet for dissent.
Anti-Fluoriders Are The OG Anti-Vaxxers|Michael Schulson|July 27, 2016|DAILY BEAST
Added to drinking water at concentrations of around one part per million, fluoride ions stick to dental plaque.
Anti-Fluoriders Are The OG Anti-Vaxxers|Michael Schulson|July 27, 2016|DAILY BEAST
In his view, a writer has only one duty: to be present in his books.
Houellebecq’s Incendiary Novel Imagines France With a Muslim President|Pierre Assouline|January 9, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Yet this, in the end, is a book from which one emerges sad, gloomy, disenchanted, at least if we agree to take it seriously.
Houellebecq’s Incendiary Novel Imagines France With a Muslim President|Pierre Assouline|January 9, 2015|DAILY BEAST

In other words, the free thinker defending freedom of thought.
Houellebecq’s Incendiary Novel Imagines France With a Muslim President|Pierre Assouline|January 9, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Practise gliding in the form of inflection, or slide, from one extreme of pitch to another.
Expressive Voice Culture|Jessie Eldridge Southwick
He alludes to it as one of their evil customs and used by them to produce insensibility.
Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce|E. R. Billings.
There was a rumor that Alessandro and his father had both died; but no one knew anything certainly.
Ramona|Helen Hunt Jackson
He prepared a glossary of provincial and archological words, intended for a supplement to Johnson's Dictionary.
The Every Day Book of History and Chronology|Joel Munsell
Truth is a torch, but one of enormous size; so that we slink past it in rather a blinking fashion for fear it should burn us.
Pearls of Thought|Maturin M. Ballou