Crossword clues for swab
swab
- Wash, in a way
- Use a Q-tip
- Stick it in your ear!
- Sailor, or a sailor's implement
- Sailor boy
- Q-tip end
- Mop, as decks
- Mop the orlop
- Mop onboard
- Mop decks
- Marine mop
- Deck scrubber
- Crime lab item
- Cotton-tipped stick
- Cotton ___ (item such as a Q-tip)
- Cotton ___ (ear-cleaning device)
- Clean, as a deck
- Clean a deck
- Wound cleaner
- Work on a deck
- Wield a mop
- Wash the deck
- Tool for taking a DNA sample
- Tar (m)
- Take a mop to
- Take a DNA sample, perhaps
- Stick in a cabinet, say
- Shipboard resident
- Sailor's gear
- Q-tip, say
- Popeye's mop
- Piece of fabric for medical use
- Multi-purpose cotton wad
- Mop, as the deck
- Mop, as ship decks
- Mop for a deck
- Medical sample
- Mate's mop
- Mate with a mop
- Maritime mop
- Marine's mop
- Makeup-applying aid
- Lowly navy person
- It's cotton-tipped
- Hit the deck with a mop
- Hand mop?
- Gun or ear cleaner
- Forensic investigator's item
- Floor mop
- Firearm bore cleaner
- Evidence-collection aid
- Epithelial cell collector
- Ear-cleaning implement
- Ear-cleaning device
- Do a deck?
- Do a deck hand's job
- DNA-sampling tool
- DNA-sample collector
- DNA test kit item
- DNA sample collector
- DNA lab item
- DNA collector
- DNA collection stick
- Deckhand's tool
- Deckhand's need
- Deck disinfector
- Criminal investigator's stick
- Crack Up song to mop to?
- Cotton-tipped product
- Cotton-tipped item
- Cotton-tipped cleaner
- Cotton-tipped applicator
- Cotton stick
- Cotton ___ (generic term for a Q-tip)
- Clear, as the deck
- Clean, as the poop deck
- Clean, as the Pequod or Bounty
- Clean with a mop, as a ship's deck
- Clean with a mop
- Aussie's "ear bud"
- Alcohol ___
- Acquisition of a DNA specimen
- ___ the decks (clean up, on a boat)
- ___ the deck (use a mop, on a boat)
- Nurse's stick
- Sailor's mop
- Q-tip, e.g.
- Sailor, informally
- Hit the deck?
- Tar's mop
- Q-Tip, for one
- Med lab specimen
- Use a mop
- Q-tip, e.g
- Nurse's item
- Culture transferer
- Clear the deck?
- Matey
- Do the decks
- Medium for a medical sample
- Mop the decks
- What tars do to decks
- Do a salt's job
- Deck cleaner
- Forensic evidence collector
- Gun barrel cleaner
- Tidy up topside
- DNA collector, perhaps
- Seaborne lackey
- Deck washer
- Crime lab tool
- One standing on deck
- Aid for collecting some samples
- Navy enlistee, informally
- Mop, as a deck
- Make shipshape, as a ship
- Implement consisting of a small piece of cotton that is used to apply medication or cleanse a wound or obtain a specimen of a secretion
- Cleaning implement consisting of absorbent material fastened to a handle
- For cleaning floors
- Clean the orlop
- Shipboard mop
- Cotton on a stick
- Clean the decks
- Orlop mop
- Gun brush
- Gob's mop
- Orlop cleaner
- Clear the decks?
- Mop up
- Brush for cleaning a gun barrel
- Do a deck job
- Medical applicator
- Mop or sponge
- Do a sailor's job
- Cosmetics applier
- Clean an orlop
- Ship's mop
- Deck mop
- Tar's cleaner
- Cornish sailor’s mop?
- Sailor's beginning with a bucket initially and mop
- Pad for cleaning wounds
- It’s used to clean edges of surgeon’s instrument - Boatman closes it
- Absorbent pad
- Cleaning tool
- Ear cleaner
- Mariner's mop
- Slangy sailor
- Cotton product
- Q-tip tip
- Do tar work
- Absorbent stick
- Specimen collector
- Q-Tip, for example
- Nautical mop
- Cotton ball
- Cotton ___ (Q-tip, for example)
- Clear the decks
- Clean decks
- Wound-cleaning cotton ball
- Ointment applicator
- Large mop
- DNA kit tool
- Cotton-tipped ear cleaner
- Canal cleaner
- Bit of cotton on a stick
- "Avast!" responder
- Work on the deck
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Swab \Swab\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Swabbed; p. pr. & vb. n. Swabbing.] [See Swabber, n.] To clean with a mop or swab; to wipe when very wet, as after washing; as, to swab the desk of a ship. [Spelt also swob.]
Swab \Swab\, n. [Written also swob.]
A kind of mop for cleaning floors, the desks of vessels, etc., esp. one made of rope-yarns or threads.
A bit of sponge, cloth, or the like, fastened to a handle, for cleansing the mouth of a sick person, applying medicaments to deep-seated parts, etc.
(Naut.) An epaulet. [Sailor's Slang]
--Marryat.A cod, or pod, as of beans or pease. [Obs.]
--Bailey.A sponge, or other suitable substance, attached to a long rod or handle, for cleaning the bore of a firearm.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1650s, "mop made of rope or yarn," from swabber (c.1600) "mop for cleaning a ship's deck," from Dutch zwabber, akin to West Frisian swabber "mop," from Proto-Germanic *swabb-, perhaps of imitative origin, denoting back-and-forth motion, especially in liquid.\n
\nNon-nautical meaning "anything used for mopping up" is from 1787; as "cloth or sponge on a handle to cleanse the mouth, etc.," from 1854. Slang meaning "a sailor" first attested 1798, short for swabber "member of a ship's crew assigned to swab decks" (1590s), which by c.1600 was being used in a broader sense of "one who behaves like a low-ranking sailor, one fit only to use a swab."
1719, possibly a back-formation from swabber (see swab (n.)). Related: Swabbed; swabbing. Related: Swabification "mopping" (1833).
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context medicine English) a small piece of soft, absorbent material, such as gauze, used to clean wounds, apply medicine, or take samples of body fluids. Often attached to a stick or wire to aid access. 2 A sample taken with a swab (1). 3 A piece of material used for cleaning or sampling other items like musical instruments or guns. 4 A mop, especially on a ship. 5 (context slang English) A sailor; a swabby. vb. (context transitive English) To use a swab on something, or clean something with a swab.
WordNet
n. implement consisting of a small piece of cotton that is used to apply medication or cleanse a wound or obtain a specimen of a secretion
cleaning implement consisting of absorbent material fastened to a handle; for cleaning floors [syn: swob, mop]
v. wash with a swab or a mop; "swab the ship's decks" [syn: swob]
apply (usually a liquid) to a surface; "dab the wall with paint" [syn: dab, swob]
Wikipedia
Usage examples of "swab".
His arm already had been swabbed with iodine, sewn up and bandaged and in a sling and he was thanking his luck that his wound was relatively superficial.
Miles peeled back the biotainer wrap from his left wrist, and gritted his teeth as a biocide swab stung and the needle poked.
Roche had brought, poured some on a cloth, and swabbed the bubo gently with it.
A little research showed it that DNA testing for purposes of identification was usually done with buccal swabs, just wiping a few cells off the inside of the cheek, noninvasive and less personal than a blood or sperm sample.
You take the buccal swab and swirl it around in a test tube containing a solution that turns acid in the presence of even a microgram of DNA, then add a drop of Phenol Red.
The matter in which Carido gave a buccal swab is still an active and open investigation.
Less than human, mused Boba Fett as he swabbed down the bars that his most recent captive had been held behind.
FIRST VOICE Now, in her iceberg-white, holily laundered crinoline nightgown, under virtuous polar sheets, in her spruced and scoured dust-defying bedroom in trig and trim Bay View, a house for paying guests, at the top of the town, Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard widow, twice, of Mr Ogmore, linoleum, retired, and Mr Pritchard, failed bookmaker, who maddened by besoming, swabbing and scrubbing, the voice of the vacuum-cleaner and the fume of polish, ironically swallowed disinfectant, fidgets in her rinsed sleep, wakes in a dream, and nudges in the ribs dead Mr Ogmore, dead Mr Pritchard, ghostly on either side.
Kraft has entered a long, intercalary dark age that lasts until he finds himself swabbing both arms with brown, lathery disinfectant in preparation for surgery.
Scarpetta gets out a presumptive blood kit and swabs areas of the wall where she saw the luminol react, working the cotton tip into the porous concrete where blood might lurk, even after washing.
He was just preparing to leave when Thornier came back upstairs with a load of buckets, mops, and swabs.
Each is about the size of a quarter and oval-shaped, and she swabs one of them, then drips isopropyl alcohol, then phenolphthalein, then hydrogen peroxide on the swab and it turns bright pink.
He said he knew a company that manufactured a putrescine detector, which doctors could use in place of swabs and cultures to diagnose vaginitis or, I suppose, a job at the skipjack cannery.
Then the two of us made frantic attempts to swab away the escaped rumenal contents with cotton wool and antiseptic, but much of it had run away beyond our reach.
Scott, he worked steadily, attaching clamps, clipping, removing tissue, swabbing, stitching, making occasional noises in his throat but otherwise not talking.