swell
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: swĕl
ipa: /swɛl/
rhymes: -ɛl
Forms: form: swells
form: swelling
form: swelled
form: swole
form: swoll
form: swollen
form: swelled
Etymology: From 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.
Senses: examples: text: 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!
ref: 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act PROLOGUE, (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)]:
text: “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 swole—and what is more she swole clean into a dropsy.”
ref: 1914, P. C. Wren, chapter 5, in Snake and Sword, London: Longmans, Green, page 78:
text: 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 like a balloon. If he hadn't had his little kit with the hyperdermic^([sic]), I guess he woulda choked to death."
ref: 1999 April 6, Stephen King, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Scribner, →ISBN; republished New York, N.Y.: Pocket Books, May 2017, →ISBN, pages 67–68:
glosses: To become bigger, especially due to being engorged.
examples: text: Rains and dissolving snow swell the rivers in spring.
text: 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 see.
ref: 1633, John Donne, “The Storme”, in Poems, London: John Marriot, page 57:
text: ’Tis low ebb sure with his Accuser, when such Peccadillos as these are put in to swell the Charge.
ref: 1687, Francis Atterbury, An Answer to Some Considerations on the Spirit of Martin Luther and the Original of the Reformation, Oxford, page 12:
text: For this scene, a large number of supers are engaged, and in order to further swell the crowd, practically all the available stage hands have to ‘walk on’ dressed in various coloured dominoes, and all wearing masks.
ref: 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Affair at the Novelty Theatre”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:
text: After a harsh police crackdown last week fueled anger and swelled protests, President Dilma Rousseff, a former guerrilla who was imprisoned under the dictatorship and has now become the target of pointed criticism herself, tried to appease dissenters by embracing their cause on Tuesday.
ref: 2013 June 18, Simon Romero, “Protests Widen as Brazilians Chide Leaders”, in New York Times, retrieved 21 Jun 2013:
glosses: To cause to become bigger.
examples: text: The organ music swelled.
glosses: To grow gradually in force or loudness.
examples: text: 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 appreciated by their distant relatives.
ref: 1880, Felix Leopold Oswald, Summerland Sketches, page 57:
glosses: To cause to grow gradually in force or loudness.
examples: text: to be swelled with pride or haughtiness
glosses: To raise to arrogance; to puff up; to inflate.
examples: text: Why, here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock.
ref: 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:
text: […] you swell at the sight of tartan, as the bull is said to do at scarlet.
ref: 1814 July 7, [Walter Scott], chapter IX, in Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 111:
glosses: To be raised to arrogance.
examples: text: 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:
ref: 1662, John Dryden, To My Lord Chancellor Presented on New-Years-Day, London: Henry Herringman, page 5:
glosses: To be elated; to rise arrogantly.
examples: text: swelling words  a swelling style
glosses: To be turgid, bombastic, or extravagant.
examples: text: A cask swells in the middle.
glosses: To protuberate; to bulge out.
Derived terms: swell out
swell the ranks
swell up