wallow

• waller (eye dialect)

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈwɒləʊ/
• Rhymes: -ɒləʊ

From Middle English walowen, walewen, walwen, welwen, from Old English wealwian (“to wallow, roll”), from Proto-Germanic *walwijaną (“to roll”), from Proto-Indo-European *welw- (“to turn, wind, roll”).

wallow (third-person singular simple present wallows, present participle wallowing, simple past and past participle wallowed)

1. (intransitive) To roll oneself about in something dirty, for example in mud

   Pigs wallow in the mud.

   • Shakespeare:

     I may wallow in the lily beds.

2. to move lazily or heavily in any medium; to flounder
3. (intransitive) To immerse oneself in, to occupy oneself with, metaphorically.

   She wallowed in her misery.

   • 1610, Alexander Cooke, Pope Joane, in William Oldys, editor, The Harleian Miscellany: or, A Collection of Scarce, Curious, and Entertaining Pamphlets and Tracts, as well in Manuscript as in Print, Found in the Late Earl of Oxford's Library: Interspersed with Historical, Political, and Critical Notes: With a Table of the Contents, and an Alphabetical Index, volume IV, London: Printed for T[homas] Osborne, in Gray's-Inn, 1744, OCLC 5325177; republished as John Maltham, editor, The Harleian Miscellany; or, A Collection of Scarce, Curious, and Entertaining Pamphlets and Tracts, as well in Manuscript as in Print, Found in the Late Earl of Oxford's Library, Interspersed with Historical, Political, and Critical Notes, volume IV, London: Printed for R. Dutton, 1808–1811, OCLC 30776079, page 95:

     If there bee any lasie fellow, any that cannot away with worke, any that would wallow in pleasures, hee is hastie to be priested. And when hee is made one, and has gotten a benefice, he consorts with his neighbour priests, who are altogether given to pleasures; and then both hee, and they, live, not like Christians, but like epicures; drinking, eating, feasting, and revelling, till the cow come home, as the saying is.

   • 1995, The Simpsons Season 7 Episode 1, Who Shot Mr. Burns?, written by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein:

     With Smithers out of the picture I was free to wallow in my own crapulence.

4. (intransitive) To live or exist in filth or in a sickening manner.
   • South

     God sees a man wallowing in his native impurity.

   • 1895, The Review of Reviews (volume 11, page 215)

     The floors are at times inches deep with dirt and scraps of clothing. The whole place wallows with putrefaction. In some of the rooms it would seem that there had not been a breath of fresh air for five years.

5. (intransitive, Britain, Scotland, dialectal) To wither; to fade.

In the sense of “to immerse oneself in, to occupy oneself with”, it is almost exclusively used for self-indulgent negative emotions, particularly self-pity. See synonyms for general or positive alternatives, such as revel.

• (to immerse oneself in): bask, delight, indulge, luxuriate, revel, rollick

wallow (plural wallows)

1. An instance of wallowing.
2. A pool of water or mud in which animals wallow, or the depression left by them in the ground.
   • 2003, Suzann Ledbetter, A Lady Never Trifles with Thieves

     Soon, the incessant wind would dry the stenchy wallow to corduroyed cement.

3. A kind of rolling walk.

(From inflected forms of) Old English wealġ, from Proto-Germanic *walwo-. Cognate with Dutch walg (“disgust”), dialectal Norwegian valg (“tasteless”). Compare waugh.

wallow (comparative more wallow, superlative most wallow)

1. (now dialectal) Tasteless, flat.