Adjacent Words

Swelling definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

SWELL'ING, ppr. Growing or enlarging in its dimensions; growing tumid; inflating; growing tumid; inflating; growing or making louder.
SWELL'ING, n. A tumor,or any morbid enlargement of the natural size; as a swelling on the hand or leg.
1. Protuberance; prominence.
The superficies of such plates are not even, but have many cavities and swellings.
2. A rising or enlargement by passion; as the swellings of anger, grief or pride.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: an abnormal protuberance or localized enlargement [syn: swelling, puffiness, lump]
2: something that bulges out or is protuberant or projects from its surroundings; "the gun in his pocket made an obvious bulge"; "the hump of a camel"; "he stood on the rocky prominence"; "the occipital protuberance was well developed"; "the bony excrescence between its horns" [syn: bulge, bump, hump, swelling, gibbosity, gibbousness, jut, prominence, protuberance, protrusion, extrusion, excrescence]
3: the increase in volume of certain substances when they are heated (often accompanied by release of water) [syn: intumescence, intumescency, swelling]

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: before 12th century 1. something that is swollen; specifically an abnormal bodily protuberance or localized enlargement 2. the condition of being swollen

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. an abnormal protuberance on or in the body.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Swell Swell, v. i. [imp. Swelled; p. p. Swelled or Swollen; p. pr. & vb. n. Swelling.] [AS. swellan; akin to D. zwellen, OS. & OHG. swellan, G. schwellen, Icel. svella, Sw. sv["a]lla.] 1. To grow larger; to dilate or extend the exterior surface or dimensions, by matter added within, or by expansion of the inclosed substance; as, the legs swell in dropsy; a bruised part swells; a bladder swells by inflation. 2. To increase in size or extent by any addition; to increase in volume or force; as, a river swells, and overflows its banks; sounds swell or diminish. 3. To rise or be driven into waves or billows; to heave; as, in tempest, the ocean swells into waves. 4. To be puffed up or bloated; as, to swell with pride. You swell at the tartan, as the bull is said to do at scarlet. --Sir W. Scott. 5. To be inflated; to belly; as, the sails swell. 6. To be turgid, bombastic, or extravagant; as, swelling words; a swelling style. 7. To protuberate; to bulge out; as, a cask swells in the middle. 8. To be elated; to rise arrogantly. Your equal mind yet swells not into state. --Dryden. 9. To grow upon the view; to become larger; to expand. ``Monarchs to behold the swelling scene!'' --Shak. 10. To become larger in amount; as, many little debts added, swell to a great amount. 11. To act in a pompous, ostentatious, or arrogant manner; to strut; to look big. Here he comes, swelling like a turkey cock. --Shak.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Swelling Swell"ing, n. 1. The act of that which swells; as, the swelling of rivers in spring; the swelling of the breast with pride. Rise to the swelling of the voiceless sea. --Coleridge. 2. A protuberance; a prominence; especially (Med.), an unnatural prominence or protuberance; as, a scrofulous swelling. The superficies of such plates are not even, but have many cavities and swellings. --Sir I. Newton.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(swellings) A swelling is a raised, curved shape on the surface of your body which appears as a result of an injury or an illness. His eye was partly closed, and there was a swelling over his lid... N-VAR

Easton's Bible Dictionary

of Jordan (Jer. 12:5), literally the "pride" of Jordan (as in R.V.), i.e., the luxuriant thickets of tamarisks, poplars, reeds, etc., which were the lair of lions and other beasts of prey. The reference is not to the overflowing of the river banks. (Comp. 49:19; 50:44; Zech. 11:3).

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

swel'-ing: The verb ga'-ah, means "rise up" (Eze 47:5, etc.), so that the noun ga'awah (Ps 46:3) means "arising." The "swelling" of the sea that shakes the mountains is a perfectly good translation, and "pride" (so the American Revised Version margin) is beside the mark. In Jer 12:5; 49:19 parallel 50:44; Zec 11:3 is found the phrase ge'on ha-yarden, "exaltation of the Jordan," which the King James Version translates "pride of Jordan" in Zechariah and "swelling of Jordan" in Jeremiah (the Revised Version (British and American) has "pride" throughout, with "swelling" in the margin of Jeremiah). What is described is a place, with a mass of vegetation, easily burned (Zec 11:1-3), a lair of lions (Jer 49:19; Zec 11:3), and a particularly dangerous place for human beings (Jer 12:5). The luxuriant thicket of the Jordan bank is evidently meant, which could well be spoken of as "Jordan's pride" (OHL, "majesty of the Jordan"), and "swelling" is quite impossible.

In the New Testament "swelling" is used in 2Co 12:20 for phusiosis, "puffing up," "blatant self-conceit," and 2Pe 2:18 parallel Jude verse 16 for huperogkos, "overgrown," "solemnly inane."

Burton Scott Easton

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

I. a. Bombastic, pompous, turgid, inflated, tumid, stilted, grandiloquent, pretentious, high-flowing, high-sounding, rhetorical, declamatory, grandiose. II. n. 1. Swell. 2. Protuberance, bump, prominence, rise.

Moby Thesaurus

abscess, access, accession, accretion, accrual, accruement, accumulation, addition, advance, aggrandizement, amplification, aposteme, appreciation, ascent, augmentation, aureate, bagging, baggy, ballooning, bed sore, bellying, billowing, billowy, blain, bleb, blister, bloat, bloated, bloatedness, bloating, blowing up, boil, bombastic, boom, boost, bosomy, breaking point, broadening, bubo, buildup, bulbose, bulbous, bulge, bulging, bulla, bump, bumped, bumpy, bunched, bunchy, bunion, canker, canker sore, carbuncle, chancre, chancroid, chilblain, cold sore, corn, crescendo, crescendoing, crescent, cyst, development, diastole, dilatation, dilation, distended, distension, dropsy, edema, elevation, enlargement, eschar, euphuistic, excrescence, expanding, expansion, extension, extreme tension, felon, fester, festering, fever blister, fistula, flatulence, flatulency, flatulent, flatus, flood, flowery, fullness, furuncle, furunculus, fustian, gain, gassiness, gassy, gathering, grandiloquent, greatening, growing, growth, gumboil, gush, hemorrhoids, hike, hillocky, hummocky, increase, increasing, increment, incremental, inflated, inflation, intensifying, intensity, intumescence, jump, kibe, leap, lengthening, lesion, loudishness, loudness, lump, magniloquent, meteorism, mounting, mouthy, moutonnee, multiplication, multiplying, node, nodule, on the increase, overdistension, overdrawing, overexpansion, overextension, overstrain, overstraining, overstretching, papula, papule, paronychia, parulis, petechia, piles, pimple, pneumatic, pock, polyp, potbellied, pouching, productiveness, proliferating, proliferation, prominence, protrusion, protuberance, puff, puffiness, puffing, pustule, raise, rise, rising, rounded, scab, sebaceous cyst, snapping point, snowballing, soft chancre, sonority, sonorousness, sore, spread, spreading, stigma, strain, straining, stretch, stretching, sty, suppuration, surge, surge of sound, swell, swellage, swollen, swollenness, tension, tightening, tubercle, tumefaction, tumescence, tumescent, tumid, tumidity, tumidness, tumor, turgescence, turgescency, turgescent, turgid, turgidity, turgidness, tympanism, tympany, ulcer, ulceration, up, upping, upsurge, upswing, uptrend, upturn, verrucated, verrucose, volume, wale, warty, waxing, welt, wen, wheal, whelk, whitlow, widening, windiness, windy, wound