swallowing

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The act of moving food, drink, or saliva from the mouth through the throat and into the stomach.

   Difficulty with swallowing can make eating a slow and careful process.

   Speech therapists assess swallowing in patients recovering from throat surgery.

   Similardeglutition

   Note

   Unlike the gerund, the noun can be counted, so each act is a swallowing. The Hahnemannian Monthly of 1865 lists "frequent empty swallowings" among symptoms of a dry mouth and throat, meaning swallows with nothing to send down. Where everyday English says swallowing, technical writing can reach for its Latinate synonym, deglutition.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of swallow.

   The patient was swallowing with great difficulty after the operation.

   Swallowing too fast, he started to choke on a piece of bread.

   Note

   The -ing form does two jobs. It builds progressive tenses (she was swallowing hard), and as a gerund it names the action while keeping the verb's grammar: swallowing a pill, swallowing a story. Without an object it often signals nerves rather than eating. Once it takes a plural or an article, as in frequent swallowings, it has become the noun for the act.

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