wallow
to roll about or lie in water, snow, mud, dust, or the like, as for refreshment: Goats wallowed in the dust.
to live self-indulgently; luxuriate; revel: to wallow in luxury; to wallow in sentimentality.
to flounder about; move along or proceed clumsily or with difficulty: A gunboat wallowed toward port.
to surge up or billow forth, as smoke or heat: Waves of black smoke wallowed into the room.
an act or instance of wallowing.
a place in which animals wallow: hog wallow; an elephant wallow.
the indentation produced by animals wallowing: a series of wallows across the farmyard.
Origin of wallow
1Other words for wallow
Words Nearby wallow
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use wallow in a sentence
I know many people who think to be an artist means you have to suffer, or at least wallow in old miseries.
Mara Wilson Remembers Robin Williams: We're All His Goddamn Kids | Mara Wilson | August 18, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTAmia, Louie's temporary girlfriend, is gone, leaving him to wallow in his heartbreak—at least for a few scenes.
Louie Attempts Rape (and Explores the ‘Nice Guy’ Phenomenon) | Amy Zimmerman | June 3, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTIn our film, Emad is using a language that does not wallow in suffering and in that way he becomes a powerful inspiration.
Comfortable Symbols: The Suffering Palestinian and the Good Israeli | Guy Davidi | February 24, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTBut Romney strikes me as a glass-half-full kind of guy, so let us not wallow in the negatives.
Super Tuesday: Mitt Romney’s Senior Citizen Surge | Michelle Cottle | March 7, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTThe wallow is the best known, but not the only, fire now racing through Arizona.
Did you not see his crooked claws when he set the bowl before you, that you might wallow in the debasing drink?
Skipper Worse | Alexander Lange KiellandOn the perfect day I have been talking about she hunted up a sunlit puddle and indulged in the first wallow of the season.
The Red Cow and Her Friends | Peter McArthurWell, Beatrice selected a spot where a defective drain had left the ground soft and trenched it with a luxurious wallow.
The Red Cow and Her Friends | Peter McArthurThe willow tree (Welsh helygen), which grows essentially by the water-side, may be connoted with wallow.
Archaic England | Harold BayleyBut after a lowly wallow in melancholy, a sudden rise of spirits is always viewed with suspicion by a woman.
A Yankee from the West | Opie Read
British Dictionary definitions for wallow
/ (ˈwɒləʊ) /
(esp of certain animals) to roll about in mud, water, etc, for pleasure
to move about with difficulty
to indulge oneself in possessions, emotion, etc: to wallow in self-pity
(of smoke, waves, etc) to billow
the act or an instance of wallowing
a muddy place or depression where animals wallow
Origin of wallow
1Derived forms of wallow
- wallower, noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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