Swelling

How to spell swelling

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce swelling

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does swelling mean?

1. nounAn abnormal enlargement or raised area on the body or a surface.
2. verbPresent participle of swell: growing larger, expanding, or increasing.

Swelling in a sentence

• noun

  The doctor examined the swelling on his ankle after the fall.

• verb

  The river was swelling rapidly after three days of heavy rain.

• noun

  Applying ice helped reduce the swelling around the bruise.

• verb

  The crowd kept swelling as more fans arrived for the match.

Where does swelling come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the Old English verb swellan, which simply meant 'to grow larger' or 'to expand'. That root belongs to a wide Germanic family, with close cousins in Dutch zwellen and German schwellen, all carrying the same idea of bulging or rising. The noun sense, naming the puffed-up area itself rather than the action, was formed in English by adding the familiar -ing suffix to the verb. For centuries the word has done double duty in medicine and in everyday speech, describing everything from an injured ankle to a rising tide. The spelling is reassuringly phonetic, though writers occasionally hesitate over whether the middle consonant is doubled; it is, because the short vowel in 'swell' keeps the double l.

How the word is built

• swell (from Old English swellan: to grow larger)
• -ing (noun/verb suffix)