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Noun: swelling  swe-ling
  1. An abnormal protuberance or localized enlargement
    - puffiness, lump
     
  2. Something that bulges out or is protuberant or projects from its surroundings
    - bulge, bump, hump, 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)
    - intumescence, intumescency
Verb: swell (swelled,swollen)  swel
  1. Increase in size, magnitude, number, or intensity
    "The music swelled to a crescendo"
     
  2. Become filled with pride, arrogance, or anger
    "The mother was swelling with importance when she spoke of her son";
    - puff up
     
  3. Expand abnormally
    "The bellies of the starving children are swelling";
    - swell up, intumesce, tumefy, tumesce, puff
     
  4. Come up (as of feelings and thoughts, or other ephemeral things)
    "Smoke swelled from it";
    - well up
     
  5. Come up, as of a liquid
    "Tears swell in her eyes";
    - well
     
  6. Cause to become swollen
    "The water swells the wood"

Derived forms: swellings

Type of: act, arise, behave, chemical action, chemical change, chemical process, come up, develop, do, enlargement, expand, grow, increase, originate, projection, rise, rise up, spring up, surface, symptom, uprise

Encyclopedia: Swelling

Swell, Steve