Swell

/swɛl/ · verb

Meaning

(intransitive) To become bigger, especially due to being engorged..

Definitions by Sense

1. (intransitive) To become bigger, especially due to being engorged.
2. (transitive) To cause to become bigger.
3. (intransitive) To grow gradually in force or loudness.
4. (transitive) To cause to grow gradually in force or loudness.
5. (transitive) To raise to arrogance; to puff up; to inflate.
6. (intransitive) To be raised to arrogance.
7. To be elated; to rise arrogantly.
8. To be turgid, bombastic, or extravagant.

Example Sentences

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 swole—and what is more she swole clean into a dropsy.”

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."

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 see.

’Tis low ebb sure with his Accuser, when such Peccadillos as these are put in to swell the Charge.

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.

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.

Synonyms for swell

Antonyms for swell

Related Words

Word Forms

• swells
• swelling
• swelled
• swole
• swoll
• swollen
• sweller
• swellest

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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