swinish

[swahy-nish]

adjective

1. like or befitting swine; hoggish.

2. brutishly coarse, gross, or sensual.

Other Word Forms

• swinishly adverb
• swinishness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of swinish¹

Middle English word dating back to 1150–1200; swine, -ish ¹

Example Sentences

“Many people, particularly scientists, believe that we are suffering in the U.S. from a national epidemic of irrationality—what Senator J.W. Fulbright of Arkansas has called the ‘swinish blight of anti-intellectualism.’

Read more on Scientific American

Wishing “good swill” to all nations in a kind of off-handed prayer, he savages “swinish politics” for wrecking his beloved Southwestern landscapes.

Read more on New York Times

In any case, to the men deceived by the bed trick, whether swinish Bertram or the psychopathic puritan Angelo in Measure for Measure, the woman each desires is a conquest only.

Read more on The Guardian

It was their confidence, maybe—their blissful, swinish ignorance, their bumptious self-satisfaction, and, worst of all, their hope.

Read more on Literature

Scarce had they drunk when she flew after them with her long stick and shut them in a pigsty— bodies, voices, heads, and bristles, all swinish now, though minds were still unchanged.

Read more on Literature

Related Words

• barbaric 
• churlish 
• coarse 
• impolite 
• rude 
• tasteless 
• uncivilized 
• vulgar