sweint, sweinmotet

See swain, swainmote, sweir, a. A Scotch spelling of sweer. swell (swel), v.; pret. swelled, pp. swelled or swol len, ppr. swelling. Swollen is now more frequently used as an adjective. [ Congreve, Semele, ii. 3. The debt of vengeance was swollen by all the usury which had been accumulating during many years. Macaulay , Nugent's Hampden. 2. To inflate; puff up; raise to arrogance. If it did infect my blood with joy, Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride. Shak . , 2 Hen. IV., iv. 5. 171. They are swoln full of pride, arrogancy, and self-conceit. Burton , Anat. of Mel., p. 185. What other notions but these, or such like, could swell up Caligula to think himself a God? Milton , Eikon ok las tes, xi. 3. To increase gradually the intensity, force, or volume of: as, to swell a tone. See swell, n., 4. swell (swel), n. [ It moderates the Swell of Joy that I am in to think of Steele, Grief A-la-Mode, iv. 1. your Difficulties. The rich swell of a hymn, sung by sweet Swedish voices, floated to us over the fields as we drove up to the postB. Taylor , Northern Travel, p. 413. station. 2. An elevation above a level, especially a gradual and even rise: as, a swell of land. Soft mo y lawns Beneath these canopies extend their swells . Shelley , Alastor. Beside the crag the heath was very deep; when I lay down, my feet were buried in it;... a low, mo y swell was my pillow. Charlotte Brontë , Jane Eyre, xxviii. 3. A wave, especially when long and unbroken; collectively, the waves or fluctuations of the sea after a storm, often called ground - swell ; billows; a surge: as, a heavy swell . A fisherman stood on the beach in a statuesque attitude, his handsome bare legs bathed in the frothy swells . B. Taylor , Lands of the Saracen, p. 41. Up! where the airy citadel O'erlooks the surging landscape's swell . Emerson, Monadnoc. 4. In music: ( a ) A gradual increase and following decrease in loudne or force; a crescendo combined with a diminuendo. Compare me a di voce. (b) The sign ture. This central spot is called the San Rafael swell , and it is full of interest and suggestion to the geologist. From its central point the strata dip away in all directions, the inclination, however, being always very small. C. E. Dutton, Sec. Ann. Rep. U. S. Geol. Surv., p. 56. 8. In coal - mining, a channel washed out or in some way eroded in a coal-seam, and afterward filled up with clay or sand. Also called, in some English coal-fields, a horse, and in others a want; sometimes also a horse - back, and in the South Wales coal-field a swine - back.-9. A man of great claims to admiration; one of distinguished personality; hence, one who puts on such an appearance, or endeavors to appear important or distinguished; a dandy: as, a howling swell (a conspicuously great swell ). [Colloq.] The abbey may do very well For a feudal "Nob," or poetical Swell. Barham , In golds by Legends, I. 110. Selina remark'd that a swell met at Rome Is not always a swell when you meet him at home. F. Locker , Mr. Placid's Flirtation. Presently, from the wood in front of us, emerged the head of the body of cavalry, a magnificent swell , as he was called, in yellow shawls, with a green turban, mounted on a white arab, leading them. W. H. Ru ell, Diary in India, I. 271. Bruce can't be half such a swell as one fancied. He's only taken a second. Farrar , Julian Home. 10. In a stop-motion of a loom, a curved lever in the shuttle-box, which raises a catch out of engagement with the stop or stop-finger whenever the shuttle fairly enters the shuttle-box, but which, when the shuttle fails to enter, permits such engagement, thus bringing into action mechanism that stops the loom. Compare stop - motion.- Full swell, the entire power of the swell organ. Syn. 3. See wavel . II. a. First-rate of its kind; hence, elegant; stylish. [Colloq.] They narrate to him the advent and departure of the lady in the swell carriage, the mother of the young swell with the flower in his button-hole. Thackeray , Philip, xxiii. swell-blind (swel'blind), n. In organ -build ing , one of the movable slats or blinds forming the front of the swell-box. These slats are now usually arranged vertically.