swell

Etymology 1

From Middle English swellen, from Old English swellan (“to swell”), from Proto-Germanic *swellaną (“to swell”), of unknown origin. Cognate with Old Frisian swella, Low German swellen, Dutch zwellen (“to swell”), German schwellen (“to swell”), Swedish svälla (“to swell”), Icelandic svella. The adjective may derive from the noun.

verb

1. (intransitive) To become bigger, especially due to being engorged.
   “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.” 1914, P. C. Wren, chapter 5, in Snake and Sword, London: Longmans, Green, page 78
   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, I guess he woulda choked to death." 6 April 1999, Stephen King, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Scribner; republished New York, N.Y.: Pocket Books, May 2017, pages 67–68
2. (transitive) To 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 see. 1633, John Donne, “The Storme”, in Poems, London: John Marriot, page 57
   ’Tis low ebb sure with his Accuser, when such Peccadillos as these are put in to swell the Charge. 1687, Francis Atterbury, An Answer to Some Considerations on the Spirit of Martin Luther and the Original of the Reformation, Oxford, page 12
   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. 1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, chapter 2, in The Affair at the Novelty Theatre
   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. June 18 2013, Simon Romero, “Protests Widen as Brazilians Chide Leaders”, in New York Times, retrieved 2013-06-21
3. (intransitive) To grow gradually in force or loudness.
   The organ music swelled.
4. (transitive) To 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 appreciated by their distant relatives. 1880, Felix Leopold Oswald, Summerland Sketches, page 57
5. (transitive) To raise to arrogance; to puff up; to inflate.
   to be swelled with pride or haughtiness
6. (intransitive) To be raised to arrogance.
7. 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: 1662, John Dryden, To My Lord Chancellor Presented on New-Years-Day, London: Henry Herringman, page 5
8. To be turgid, bombastic, or extravagant.
   swelling words  a swelling style
9. To protuberate; to bulge out.
   A cask swells in the middle.

Etymology 2

From Middle English swelle, from the verb swellen (modern swell).

noun

1. The act of swelling; increase in size.
2. A bulge or protuberance.
3. Increase 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 periods […] 1826, Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations, 2nd edition, London: Henry Colburn, Volume I, Conversation 6, p. 128
4. A long series of ocean waves, generally produced by wind, and lasting after the wind has ceased.
   The Tilbury-Gravesend foot passenger ferry fights its way through a high swell on the river Thames on February 16 2022. February 8 2023, Barry Doe, “Birmingham & West Midlands Atlas is a fine production”, in RAIL, number 976, page 63, photo caption
5. (music) A gradual crescendo followed by diminuendo.
6. (music) A device for controlling the volume of a pipe organ.
7. (music) A division in a pipe organ, usually the largest enclosed division.
8. A 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. 1909, Joseph A. Altsheler, chapter 2, in The Last of the Chiefs
9. (geology) An upward protrusion of strata from whose central region the beds dip quaquaversally at a low angle.
10. (informal, dated) A 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? c. 1850, William Makepeace Thackeray, “The Kickleburys on the Rhine”, in The Christmas Books of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh
    He was dressed in a flashy style, not unlike what is popularly denominated a swell. 1887, Horatio Alger, chapter 9, in The Cash Boy
    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 are at somewhat of a loss, seemingly, how to proportionize the time given to the different sides of college life, or how far to allow themselves to go on the more attractive side. 1892, Occident - Volume 22, page 36
11. (informal) A 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 is a swell." And Lilian Dale was right; Mr Crosbie was a swell. 1864, Anthony Trollope, chapter 2, in The Small House at Allington
    The only sensible man I came across was the cabman who drove me about. A broken-down swell he was, I fancy. 1900, Joseph Conrad, chapter 14, in Lord Jim, Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood, page 176
    You buy a lot of Indian or halfbreed loafers with beaver-skins and rum, go to the Mount of the Burning Arrows, and these fellows dance round you and call you one of the lost race, the Mighty Men of the Kimash Hills. And they'll do that while the rum lasts. Meanwhile you get to think yourself a devil of a swell—you and the gods! 1906, Gilbert Parker, chapter 8, in The Trespasser
    ‘[…] Colleoni’s going to take over this place from you, and he’s got his lawyer. A man in London. A swell.’ 1938, Graham Greene, Brighton Rock, New York: Vintage, published 2002, Part Seven, Chapter 3, p. 209
12. The front brow of a saddle bow, connected in the tree by the two saddle bars to the cantle on the other end.

Etymology 3

From the noun "swell" (a person dressed in an elegant manner).

adj

1. (dated) Fashionable, 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. 1912, Popular Mechanics, page 20
2. (Canada, US, dated slang) Excellent.
   ...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. 1927 Mar. 31, Ernest Hemingway, letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald
   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 guy I ever skinned a knuckle on and I’ve skinned them on plenty.” 1931, Dashiell Hammett, The Glass Key, page 176
   […] we’re league champions in basketball and our square-dance team is state runner-up and we have a swell sock hop every Wednesday. 1958, Robert A. Heinlein, Have Space Suit—Will Travel, page 8
   Orgasms are swell, but they are not the remedy to every injustice. Sept. 10, 2012, Ariel Levy, “The Space In Between”, in The New Yorker

adv

1. (Canada, US, informal) Very well.
   That lousy ring wasn’t worth no grand. I did swell to get two centuries for it. 1929, Dashiell Hammett, chapter 12, in Red Harvest
   […] 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— 1966, Truman Capote, In Cold Blood, New York: Modern Library, published 2013, Part 3, p. 251