A soft stick or cloth used to clean or take samples from a surface, especially the inside of the mouth; or to clean something with such a stick.
From Dutch 'zwab,' meaning a mop or cloth. Originally a nautical term for cleaning ship decks, it later came to mean any cotton or cloth used for cleaning or medical sampling.
COVID tests made swabs famous, but doctors have used them for centuries to collect samples—the genius is that they're gentle enough not to hurt you but effective at getting cells or bacteria to analyze. A single cheek swab can contain thousands of your cells!
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