According to a contributor to N. & Q. 1st Ser. I. 369/2, the term originated at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in the use on one occasion of the expression ‘It mades one swot’ (= sweat) by the Scottish professor of mathematics, William Wallace.
slang.
1. Work or study at school or college; in early use spec. mathematics. Hence gen. labour, toil.
2. One who studies hard. (OED)
"Argeiphantes does not feature much in the works of Benjamin Black, and you can imagine Black knocking back his fourth whiskey of the day, having already churned out a couple of thousand words, leaning back in his chair and saying, 'Banville, you swot.' Quirke does have a plaster bust of Socrates in his flat, but it was given to him as a joke."
- Joanna Kavenna, "Pseudonymously Yours: The strange case of Benjamin Black", 11 & 18 July 2011 The New Yorker
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