wallow

verb

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

   “Pigs wallow in the mud.”

   “O be thou my Charon, / And giue me ſwift tranſportance to theſe fieldes, / VVhere I may wallow in the lilly beds, / Propoſ'd for the deſeruer.”

   “Make ye him drunken: for hee magnified himselfe against the Lord: Moab also shall wallow in his vomit, and he also shalbe in derision.”

   “When Manſoul trampled upon things Divine, / And wallowed in filth as doth a ſwine:”

2. (intransitive)To move lazily or heavily in any medium.

   “The fire was thrown to a great height; the fountains and jets all wallowed together; new ones appeared, and danced joyously round the margin, then converging towards the centre they merged into one glowing mass, which upheaved itself pyramidally and disappeared with a vast plunge.”

   ““A Hot Steam’s somebody who can’t get to heaven, just wallows around on lonesome roads an‘ if you walk through him, when you die you’ll be one too, an’ you’ll go around at night suckin‘ people’s breath-””

   “Amongst the cruisers, it's not such good news. New Orleans is sunk; Wichita is wallowing and desperately in need of assistance, which two destroyers are providing; meanwhile, Biloxi and Vincennes are both in the process of going down and being abandoned, whilst Miami is right on the knife-edge of being recoverable, with three destroyers clustering around offering pumping and additional damage-control crews to try and keep the light cruiser afloat.”

3. (figuratively, intransitive)To immerse oneself in, to occupy oneself with, metaphorically.

   “She wallowed in her misery.”

   “If there be any lazy Fellow, any that cannot away with Work, any that would wallow in Pleaſures, he is haſty to be prieſted. And, when he is made one, and hath gotten a Benefice, he conſorts with his Neighbour Prieſts, who are altogether given to Pleaſures; and then both he, and they, live, not like Chriſtians, but like Epicures; drinking, eating, feaſting, and revelling, till the Cow come Home, as the saying is; [...]”

   “With the help of a sleepy waiter, Little Billee got the bacchanalian into his room and lit his candle for him, and, disengaging himself from his maudlin embraces, left him to wallow in solitude.”

   “Regret is an appalling waste of energy, and no one who intends to be a writer can afford to indulge in it. You can't get it into shape; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in.”

   “There the North British, having apparently decided that we had sufficiently wallowed in luxury, turned us out and loaded us into ancient four-wheelers, which were then attached to the rear of the night express (8.15 from Kings Cross).”

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

   “God sees a man wallowing in his native impurity.”

   “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. (UK, dialectal, intransitive)To fade, fade away, wither, droop; fail to flourish.

noun

1. (intransitive)An instance of wallowing.
2. (intransitive)A pool of water or mud in which animals wallow, or the depression left by them in the ground.

   “However, we have no time to linger, and picking our way among the countless buffalo wallows which indent the level surface of the summit, the wagon, […]”

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

3. (intransitive)A kind of rolling walk.

adj

1. (dialectal, intransitive)Tasteless, flat.