/swɛl/
OriginFrom Middle English swellen, from Old English swellan (“to swell”), from Proto-West Germanic *swellan, from Proto-Germanic *swellaną (“to swell”), of unknown origin.
Cognate with Saterland Frisian swälle (“to swell”), West Frisian swolle (“to swell”), Dutch zwellen (“to swell”), Low German swellen (“to swell”), German schwellen (“to swell”), Swedish svälla (“to swell”), Icelandic svella. The adjective may derive from the noun.
- intransitiveTo become bigger, especially due to being engorged.
“O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!”
““If you drinks a drop more, Miss Lucy, you’ll just go like my pore young sister goed, […] Pop she did not. She swole … swole and swole.”
“You mean ‘swelled,’ Cookoo,” corrected Lucille […]
“[…] I say ”
“She had overheard her Mom and Mrs. Thomas from across the street talking about someone who was allergic to stings, and Mrs. Thomas had said, "Ten seconds after it gut im, poor ole Frank was swole up l”
- transitiveTo cause to become bigger.
“Rains and dissolving snow swell the rivers in spring.”
“Mildly it [the wind] kist our sailes, and, fresh, and sweet,
As, to a stomack sterv’d, whose insides meete,
Meate comes, it came; and swole our sailes, when wee
So joyd, as Sara’ her swelling joy’d to”
“’Tis low ebb sure with his Accuser, when such Peccadillos as these are put in to swell the Charge.”
- intransitiveTo grow gradually in force or loudness.
“The organ music swelled.”
- transitiveTo cause to grow gradually in force or loudness.
“It commenced with a slow crescendo, so irresistibly lugubrious that two of our dogs at once raised their heads and swelled their voices into a responsive tremolo, which may have been heard and appreci”
- transitiveTo raise to arrogance; to puff up; to inflate.
“to be swelled with pride or haughtiness”
- intransitiveTo be raised to arrogance.
“Why, here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock.”
“[…] you swell at the sight of tartan, as the bull is said to do at scarlet.”
- To be elated; to rise arrogantly.
“In all things else above our humble fate
Your equal mind yet swells not into state,
But like some mountain in those happy Isles
Where in perpetual Spring young Nature smiles,
Your greatnesse shows:”
- To be turgid, bombastic, or extravagant.
“swelling words a swelling style”
- To protuberate; to bulge out.
“A cask swells in the middle.”
- countable, uncountableThe act of swelling; increase in size.
- countable, uncountableA bulge or protuberance.
- countable, uncountableIncrease of power in style, or of rhetorical force.
“Concentrated are his arguments, select and distinct and orderly his topics, ready and unfastidious his expressions, popular his allusions, plain his illustrations, easy the swell and subsidence of his”
- countable, uncountableA long series of ocean waves, generally produced by wind, and lasting after the wind has ceased.
“the heave of a heavy ocean swell”
“There was a great, smooth swell upon the sea.”
“Now they were faced with the problem of a northerly blow, which could soon send a heavy swell clean into the bay.”
- countable, uncountableA gradual crescendo followed by diminuendo.
“He was thinking; but the glory of the song, the swell from the great organ, the clustered lights, […], the height and vastness of this noble fane, its antiquity and its strength—all these things seeme”
- countable, uncountableA device for controlling the volume of a pipe organ.
- countable, uncountableA division in a pipe organ, usually the largest enclosed division.
- countable, uncountableA hillock or similar raised area of terrain.
“Off on the crest of a swell a moving figure was seen now and then. "Antelope," said the hunters.”
- countable, uncountableAn upward protrusion of strata from whose central region the beds dip quaquaversally at a low angle.
- countable, dated, informal, uncountableA person who is stylish, fancy, or elegant.
“It costs him no more to wear all his ornaments about his distinguished person than to leave them at home. If you can be a swell at a cheap rate, why not?”
“He was dressed in a flashy style, not unlike what is popularly denominated a swell.”
“Between the two extremes of college men the unsocial dig and the flunking swell, lies the majority, who, acknowledging the duty and merit of hard work, see the value in social and recreative line, but”
- countable, informal, uncountableA person of high social standing; an important person.
“"I am not in Mr Crosbie's confidence. He is in the General Committee Office, I know; and, I believe, has pretty nearly the management of the whole of it."
"I'll tell you what he is, Bell; Mr Crosbie i”
““I,” said Binet, “once saw a piece called the ‘Gamin de Paris,’ in which there was the character of an old general that is really hit off to a T. He sets down a young swell, who had seduced a working ”
“The only sensible man I came across was the cabman who drove me about. A broken-down swell he was, I fancy.”
- countable, uncountableThe front brow of a saddle bow, connected in the tree by the two saddle bars to the cantle on the other end.
- dated, not-comparable, usuallyFashionable, like a swell or dandy.
“We pay the express, $5 a day our new agents are making and wearing the swellest clothes besides; old agents after one season make twice as much.”
- Canada, US, dated, not-comparable, slangExcellent.
“...you are my devoted friend too. You do more and work harder and oh shit I'd get maudlin about how damned swell you are. My god I'd like to see you... You're a hell of a good guy.”
“Jeff swaggered over to Ned Beaumont, threw his left arm roughly around his shoulders, seized Ned Beaumont’s right hand with his right hand, and addressed the company jovially: “This is the swellest gu”
“He was telling us all about what a swell guy he was, what a hot-shot and all, […]”
- Canada, US, informal, not-comparableVery well.
““That lousy ring wasn’t worth no grand. I did swell to get two centuries for it.””
““[…] Last August, when I left The Walls, I figured I had every chance to start new. I got a job in Olathe, lived with my family, and stayed home nights. I was doing swell—””
Formsswells(present, singular, third-person) · swelling(participle, present) · swelled(past) · swole(dialectal, past) · swoll(dialectal, past) · swollen(participle, past) · swelled(participle, past) · swells(plural) · sweller(comparative) · swellest(superlative)