swole
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /swəʊl/
ipa: /swoʊl/
rhymes: -əʊl
Forms: form: swoler
form: swolest
form: swoll
Etymology: From earlier swoll, from Middle English swal, swall, swalle (simple past tense), and suoll, suolle, swalle, swol, swole, swolle, iswolle, yswolle (past participle), inflected forms of swellen (“to swell”), from Old English sweall (simple past tense), from Proto-Germanic *swall, first and third person singular preterite of Proto-Germanic *swellaną (“to swell”); further origin uncertain.
Senses: examples: text: Well, we git him into the cook-car between us, and git him stretched out on the table and some water on him. He's kind of a sorry sight what with the black eye and swole lip he got earlier in the evenin' and now a lump on his head the size of a hen's egg where the potato masher's hit him.
ref: 1929 May, Harry G. Huse, “The One Big Union”, in The Frontier: A Magazine of the Northwest, volume IX, number 4, page 338:
text: Hell fahr, I bet my head is so swole with law I oughta be jedge and make them lawyers yore-honor me all day long, till cows drop coon-hounds stid of calves and bulls grow tits.
ref: 1950, Robert Penn Warren, World Enough and Time: A Romantic Novel, New York, N.Y.: Random House, page 370:
text: Anyone they missed could get away over the fence while they was reloading. Neither one of them would quit though their trigger fingers got so swole they couldn't get them out of the guard.
ref: 1975, Oakley Hall, The Adelita, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., →ISBN, page 56:
text: "Brownie expects me. She'll get swole if I don't milk her first thing."
ref: 1989, Bronwyn Williams, Dandelion, Toronto, O.N. […]: Harlequin Books, →ISBN, page 244:
text: Sonny asked, "Will you see good again out of that swole eye?"
ref: 2006, Daniel Woodrell, Winter's Bone: A Novel, New York, N.Y.; Boston, M.A.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 151:
text: Ruthless Rap hooked me up with a local studio so I could still record for them, but they were grimy when it came to paying on time so I had started stealing again almost as soon as I hit the campus. How else was I gonna keep my pockets swole?
ref: 2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 130:
qualifier: chiefly African-American Vernacular
glosses: Swollen, enlarged.
examples: text: I ain't swole enough, brah. I gotta work out in the gym more.
text: I will find something to slit my throat or hang some sheets from the ceiling or make one of these big, swole niggaz in here so mad at me that they break my neck.
ref: 2005, Kalisha Buckhanon, “February 11, 1990”, in Upstate, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, →ISBN:
text: "That nigga lucky he still breathing right now, yo. I should've sent some of my niggas from Bunche Place over there to take care of his swole ass," Scoot said.
ref: 2011, Nikki Turner, “Who’s Fooling Whom?”, in A Woman’s Work: Street Chronicles (Nikki Turner Presents), New York, N.Y.: One World Trade Paperbacks, Ballantine Books, →ISBN:
text: It's the athletes who showed me how to get "swole." I found a series of online videos by this megaripped dude who taught me how to fine-tune my body and turn it into a machine. [...] It worked; I got swole.
ref: 2015, Nicole Winters, chapter 1, in The Jock and the Fat Chick, New York, N.Y.: Harper Teen, HarperCollins, →ISBN:
qualifier: chiefly African-American Vernacular
glosses: Swollen, enlarged.
Of a person: having large, well-developed muscles; muscular.
synonyms: word: brawny
word: buff
word: able-bodied
word: athletic
word: Atlantean
word: beefy
word: beefed out
word: brawny
word: brolic
word: buff
word: built
word: built like a brick shithouse
word: built like a tank
word: buirdly
word: burly
word: Cyclopean
word: deep-rooted
word: dench
word: diced
word: fit
word: gigantic
word: Herculean
word: hale
word: hearty
word: hench
word: husky
word: in shape
word: jacked
word: lusty
word: like a giant refreshed
word: made of iron
word: muscular
word: muscled
word: muscleful
word: ripped
word: rugged
word: sculpted
word: sinewy
word: strapping
word: strong as a lion
word: strong as a horse
word: strong as an ox
word: strong as brandy
word: swole
word: toned
word: virile
word: well-built
word: well-fed
word: well-knit
word: wiry
examples: text: her titties got me swole.
text: You'd like him a lot. Big and all swole up thinking about you. What kind of panties you got on, Olive?
ref: 1978, Bruce Eliot [pseudonym; Edward Field and Neil Derrick], The Potency Clinic, New York, N.Y.: Bleecker Street Press, →OCLC:
qualifier: chiefly African-American Vernacular
glosses: Swollen, enlarged.
Of a person: erect; having an erection of the penis; sexually aroused, hard.
synonyms: erect
bricked up
examples: text: Sourdough went on to explain the occasion for the festivity. "The Popplewells are so swole with pride now they got the upstairs house finished that they got to give a house-warmin'."
ref: 1925, Dorothy Scarborough, The Wind, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, page 119:
text: Honey, I'm all swole up with pride. Here's the horrible part. You're going to have to stay here and meet Norman.
ref: 1951, Jean Kerr, Eleanor Brooke, King of Hearts, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., page 54:
text: Sweating and red on the dance floor / without meat hooks aimed at my skin, / except for one woman, I ducked / into a room swole with men in work boots.
ref: 2009, Tara Betts, “Don't Ask, Just Know”, in Arc and Hue, Detroit, M.I.: Willow Books, →ISBN, page 73:
text: It was a place she'd heard about only in story — a trapper country where the waters were swole with trout and beaver, and where the L'Etangs fatted and thrived.
ref: 2013, Bill Cheng, Southern Cross the Dog, London: Picador, published 2014, →ISBN, page 315:
glosses: Full (of something); bursting with.
examples: text: Strangers weren't sure she was drunk, but I knew. Granny got braggish when drunk. She got swole up about herself. When she took to bragging on her thoughts and notions it was time to jump from the station wagon and walk or brace for a crash.
ref: 2001, Daniel Woodrell, The Death of Sweet Mister: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Marian Wood Books, →ISBN, page 146:
text: Just shut your hole and listen, swole-headed prick.
ref: 2008, David Fuller, Sweetsmoke, London: Abacus, →ISBN, page 232:
text: I'm still grinning like a fool when I walk out. I'm so swole with my own foresight that it takes me a minute to realize that C's gone.
ref: 2022, Namwali Serpell, The Furrows: An Elegy, London; New York, N.Y.: Hogarth, →ISBN, page 153:
glosses: Extremely proud or arrogant.
examples: text: Every once in a while, maybe twice a year, Bessie gets all galled under the britchin' about something [...] Usually over some triflin' little thing that don't amount to a hill of beans, like I won't wash my feet or something, but she gets all swole up like a snakebit pup and says she's leavin' me for good this time.
ref: 1956, Charles Williams, chapter 4, in The Diamond Bikini (Gold Medal Books; s607), Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, →OCLC; republished [New York, N.Y.]: Open Road Media, 2012, →ISBN:
text: She could pitch drunks out in the street like horseshoes and before then I'd never thought of her in a lovely way, she being big and thick, but now I saw her in Pugh's office peeling off her Wranglers and showing her dimpled thighs and I just got all swole up with lonesome.
ref: 2006, Alex Taylor, “The Name of the Nearest River”, in American Short Fiction, Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 34; republished in The Name of the Nearest River: Stories (The Linda Bruckheimer Series in Kentucky Literature), Louisville, Ky.: Sarabande Books, 2010, →ISBN, page 6:
text: "My mother said I can stay here as long as I want to," I said, irking the shit outta him. He got swole just like I knew he would.
ref: 2012, Noire, Natural Born Liar: The Misadventures of Mink LaRue, New York, N.Y.: Dafina Books, →ISBN, page 233:
text: Of course, they was all swole up about it. Aint no self-repect'n smithy or ranch hand would be caught dead do'n housework.
ref: 2012, Amos Walker, chapter 22, in Justice and the Heart, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 125:
glosses: Upset; experiencing strong negative emotion.
raw_tags: followed by up
Synonyms: on swole
Derived terms: have one's pockets on swole
swoleness
Related terms: swollen