swelling

Etymology

It is formed from English swell + -ing,^[2][3][4] both as the verbal noun^[3][5] and as the present participle used as an adjective.^[5][2] The noun is recorded once in Old English as swelling, and the OED compares Middle Low German swillinge, Middle Dutch swellinge and Middle High German swellinge.^[2][6] The verb is from Old English swellan (“to grow in bulk”), from Proto-Germanic *swellaną,^[3][2][7] a verb found only in Germanic,^[7] whose further origin is unknown;^[3] Etymonline quotes Boutkan's view that it is most likely a substratum word.^[3] Its cognates include Old Saxon swellan, Old Norse svella, Old Frisian swella, Dutch zwellen, Old High German swellan and German schwellen.^[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A swollen part of something: Old English, in the only record of the noun, line 245 of Cynewulf's Elene, where it describes a sail swelled out by the wind.^[2][6][8] The Supplement to Clark Hall's dictionary notes that a case can be made for keeping the manuscript's reading spellingum there.^[8] The adjective, "growing in bulk, becoming distended", is also Old English, in Ælfric's version of Exodus.^[2][4] Merriam-Webster dates the noun to before the 12th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

After the single Old English record, the noun reappears in Middle English as a medical word: in 1377, in Piers Plowman, for a morbid enlargement of a part of the body; from 1542–3 it also meant the lump or tumour itself.^[2][3] Soon after it was used of water and of feeling as well: a swelling wave or flood (1387, Trevisa) and pride or arrogance (about 1386, Chaucer), both now obsolete or archaic.^[2][5] Johnson (1755) listed "morbid tumour" first, then "protuberance", and then "effort for a vent", with a Tatler quotation on "the swellings of his grief".^[9] The adjective followed the verb into shape, water, sound and style: a bulging or gently rising form (1544), rising waves (about 1550, chiefly in poetry), inflated language (1597), and sound growing fuller (1753).^[2] Language described as swelling is grand or majestic, usually in a bad sense: bombastic.^[2][4] Rising and growing feeling is another use, from before 1616.^[2] Green's Dictionary of Slang records the noun for an erection in 1904.^[10]

Timeline

• Old English – noun, a swollen part, of a sail; adjective, growing in bulk.^[2][6]
• 1377 – morbid enlargement of a part of the body.^[2]
• c. 1386 – inflation by pride; arrogant behaviour.^[2]
• 1387 – a swelling wave, tide or flood.^[2] Etymonline dates the sense of an increase or rising, as of the sea, to about 1400.^[3]
• 1542–3 – a morbid lump, a tumour.^[2]
• 1544 – adjective, bulging; rising smoothly, as a hill.^[2]
• c. 1550 – adjective, rising in waves, of water.^[2]
• 1577 – the process of growing larger; distension.^[2]
• 1579 – adjective, proud, arrogant, of a feeling.^[2]
• 1597 – adjective, of style, grand, usually bombastic.^[2]
• 1709 – the rising of emotion.^[2]
• 1753 – adjective, of sound, growing louder and fuller; the noun follows in 1818, in Keats.^[2]
• 1904 – slang, an erection.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. An abnormal enlargement of a part of the body, as from injury or disease: She had a painful swelling on her ankle.^[11][5][2]
2. Something swollen; a bulge or protuberance.^[11][5][2]
3. The act or process of growing larger, or the state of being swollen: Cold compresses eased the swelling.^[11][5][4]
4. The rising of emotion.^[2]
5. (slang) An erection.^[10]
6. (archaic) Conceit; excessive pride.^[5][2][4]
7. (archaic) The rising of water above its level; a wave, tide or flood.^[5][2][4]

Adjective

1. Growing in volume, amount or force: swelling floodwaters.^[5][2][4]
2. Bulging or gently rising in form, as a hill.^[5][2]
3. Puffed up with conceit; arrogant.^[5][2]
4. Of feeling, growing and intense.^[5][2]
5. Of style or language, grand or, usually, bombastic.^[2][4]

Word family

• swellingly

Related words

• swell
• swollen

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins