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Swell   Listen
noun
Swell  n.  
1.
The act of swelling.
2.
Gradual increase. Specifically:
(a)
Increase or augmentation in bulk; protuberance.
(b)
Increase in height; elevation; rise. "Little River affords navigation during a swell to within three miles of the Miami."
(c)
Increase of force, intensity, or volume of sound. "Music arose with its voluptuous swell."
(d)
Increase of power in style, or of rhetorical force. "The swell and subsidence of his periods."
3.
A gradual ascent, or rounded elevation, of land; as, an extensive plain abounding with little swells.
4.
A wave, or billow; especially, a succession of large waves; the roll of the sea after a storm; as, a heavy swell sets into the harbor. "The swell Of the long waves that roll in yonder bay." "The gigantic swells and billows of the snow."
5.
(Mus.) A gradual increase and decrease of the volume of sound; the crescendo and diminuendo combined; generally indicated by the sign.
6.
A showy, dashing person; a dandy. (Slang)
Ground swell. See under Ground.
Organ swell (Mus.), a certain number of pipes inclosed in a box, the uncovering of which by means of a pedal produces increased sound.
Swell shark (Zool.), a small shark (Scyllium ventricosum) of the west coast of North America, which takes in air when caught, and swells up like a swellfish.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Swell" Quotes from Famous Books



... are found to boil are either used whole, or split, which is done by steeping them in water till the cotyledons swell, after which they are dried on a kiln and passed through a mill; which just breaking the husk, ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... all this! How mighty! How simple! How divine! Beloved, have you come into the divine way of holiness! If you have, how your heart must swell with gratitude! If you have not, do you not long for it, and will you not unite in the prayer of the text that the very God of peace will sanctify ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson

... tokens of the war. Large transports lay gently rolling upon the swell in every direction, and it was said that not less than sixty ships were lying at anchor together in the bay. H.M.S. Niobe and Doris faced the town, and further off was stationed the Penelope, which had already received its earlier contingents of Boer prisoners. ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett

... battles, leaders, great achievements sing? Ah no! Minerva, with th' indignant Nine, Restrain him, and forbid the bold design. To a Buchanan does the theme belong; A theme, that well deserves Buchanan's song, 'Tis he, should swell the din of war's alarms, Record thee great in council, as in arms; Recite each conquest by thy valour won, And equal thee to great Peleides' son. That bard, his country's ornament and pride, Who e'en with Maro might the bays divide: Far worthier ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... eyes turned upon him. Olive seemed to swell with indignation. "I was in bed long ago," she made answer, still in those frozen tones. "May I ask what you are ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... and ink and write on the skin in the space between the two ends of the inflamed region, in stout letters, the words, In the name of the Father, etc. This done, he would take the toad in his hand and gently rub it on the inflamed part, and the toad, enraged at such treatment, would swell himself up almost to bursting and exude a poisonous milky secretion from his warty skin. That was all, and the ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson

... was nevertheless very slow. Symington's experiments were not renewed. The Charlotte Dundas was withdrawn from use, because of the supposed injury to the banks of the Canal, caused by the swell from the wheel. The steamboat was laid up in a creek at Bainsford, where it went to ruin, and the inventor himself died in poverty. Among those who inspected the vessel while at work were Fulton, ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... bell of Beaulieu was ringing. Far away through the forest might be heard its musical clangor and swell. Peat-cutters on Blackdown and fishers upon the Exe heard the distant throbbing rising and falling upon the sultry summer air. It was a common sound in those parts—as common as the chatter of the jays and the ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of a Virgin born, And He was prick'd by a thorn, And it did never throb nor swell, And I trust in ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking

... or "rowdy." "Tough nut" and "hard nut" are also applied to such people, the Americans having numbers of terms like these, which may be called "nicknames," or false names. Thus a man who is noted for his dress is a "swell," a ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous

... and we had no light. We were, however, glad to leave the El Dorado, because our suffering on her for weeks had been as much as we could bear. The last I saw of the schooner she was just a huge, black lump on the black waters. We rose on a swell, and she sank into ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... brown chest showed behind the white of the open shirt; the upturned sleeves bared his powerful, sunburnt arms. He sat leaning forward, looking at his right arm, bending and stretching it, watching the muscles swell and the sinews tighten under ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski

... understand it without actually going over the ground, Conniston learned that afternoon all that Bat Truxton's assistant could tell him. He learned, roughly, of course, how much had been done already, what remained to be done first, what could be allowed to wait until more men came to swell the forces now at work, what chief natural difficulties and obstacles lay across the path ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory

... difficult, as the weight is generally a dead, heavy substance, and as the animal steps low or high, the pack does the same. Much, however, might be done by care in packing, to prevent injury to the withers and bruising of the back-bone. When the withers begin to swell and inflammation sets in, or a tumor begins to form, the whole may be driven away and the fistula scattered or avoided by frequent or almost constant applications of cold water—the same as is recommended in poll-evil. But if, in despite ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley

... never die. Let the worshipful squire H. L., or the reverend Mass J. M. go into their primitive nothing. At best, they are but ill-digested lumps of chaos, only one of them strongly tinged with bituminous particles and sulphureous effluvia. But my noble patron, eternal as the heroic swell of magnanimity, and the generous throb of benevolence, shall look on with princely eye at "the war of elements, the wreck of matter, and the crash of ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... had a bad quarter of an hour at the parting from his parents, but by the time the vessel felt the swell of the open sea he was full of spirits again. The sea voyage, even in a dirty collier, was a delight. Then there was London the wonderful at the end of it, and he had long desired to see the great capital of which he had heard and read ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead

... North sailed to New York, and in his pocket was a letter which was not to be read till Bermuda was out of sight. When the coral reef was passed, when the fairy blue of the island waters had changed to the dark swell of the Atlantic, he slipped the bolt in the door of his cabin and took out ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... beheld in our enthusiasm and congregated numbers a renewal of the scenes in which they had been the actors. Perdita and Clara rode in a close carriage; I attended them on horseback. At length we arrived at the harbour; it was agitated by the outward swell of the sea; the beach, as far could be discerned, was covered by a moving multitude, which, urged by those behind toward the sea, again rushed back as the heavy waves with sullen roar burst close to them. I applied my glass, and could discern that the frigate had already cast ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... Sepias, the foremost of the ships took up their station close to land, others behind rode at anchor—the beach not being extensive enough—with their prows toward the sea, and eight deep. Thus they passed the night; but at daybreak, after serene and tranquil weather, the sea began to swell, and a heavy storm with a violent gale from the east—which those who inhabit these parts call a "Hellespontine"—burst upon them; as many of them then as perceived the gale increasing, and who were able to do so from their position, anticipated ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... said to the Great Master[35] of Lu, We can learn how to play music; at first each part in unison; then a swell of harmony, each part distinct, ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius

... trifle over a hundred and twenty-three thousand pounds through my discovery, and I am pleased to pay tribute to the young man's generosity by saying that his voluntary settlement made my bank account swell ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... off all restraint and ridiculed everything; throwing up his hands, he laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. At last, one of Trimalchio's fellow-freedmen, the one who had the place next to me, flew into a rage, "What's the joke, sheep's-head," he bawled, "Don't our host's swell entertainment suit you? You're richer than he is, I suppose, and used to dining better! As I hope the guardian spirit of this house will be on my side, I'd have stopped his bleating long ago if I'd been sitting next to him. ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... our borders; for the original healthy State is no longer sufficient. Now will the city have to fill and swell with a multitude of callings which are not required by any natural want; such as the whole tribe of hunters and actors, of whom one large class have to do with forms and colours; another will be the votaries of music—poets ...
— The Republic • Plato

... "Swell place, ain't it?" demanded the rival, taking no notice of Val or Jeems. "Make yourselves to home, boys; the place ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton

... substance. Not having access to a living specimen, which would afford the opportunity of testing conjecture, we are left to infer from the internal structure of this horn, that it is an erectile organ which, in moments of irritation, will swell like the comb of a cock. This opinion as to its physiological nature is confirmed by the remarkable circumstance that, like the rudimentary comb of the hen and young cocks, the female and the immature males of the ceratophora have the horn exceedingly small. In mature ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... shutting out the lonely selection from the rest of the colony of Victoria, and the only sign of human habitation was the weatherboard farmhouse the girl called home. Even that was hardly visible from where they stood, hidden as it was by the swell of the hill, and alone here with this man, alone with the sea and sky around her, with the soft South wind blowing among her curls, with the plaintive cry of the seagulls in her ears, the salt savour of the sea in her nostrils, she was sorely tempted to throw off the trammels of her education, ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt

... every view a greenish cast. Nearly every windmill on the ranch on our circuit was pointed out, and we passed three of our four tanks, one of which was over half a mile in length. After stopping at an outlying ranchita for refreshment, we spent the afternoon in a similar manner. From a swell of the prairie some ten miles to the westward of the ranch, we could distinctly see an outline of the Ganso. Halting the ambulance, the old ranchero pointed out to his guest the meanderings of that creek from its confluence with the parent stream ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... Abel Baragar had been unrelieved by much that was heartening to a woman; for Black Andy, Abel's son, was not an inspiring figure, though even his moroseness gave way under her influence. So it was that when Cassy's letter came her breast seemed to grow warmer and swell with longing to see the wife of her nephew, who had such a bad reputation in Abel's eyes, and to see George's little boy, who was coming, too. After all, whatever Cassy was, she was the mother of ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... small scale, and practised only along the shores of the Island;—whereas, at this time, our ships leave no seas unexplored in pursuit of these monsters of the deep. We might pursue the subject through the various stages of improvement up to this time, but it would swell this introduction beyond the limits designed. It is proper, however, to observe that the present number of ships employed in the whale fishery from Nantucket, is about 70, averaging about 350 tons each, and manned by ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay

... all unknown my soul subdue, Thy lofty soul that pierces all things through And speeds on lightning wings to heaven's blue? Or am I racked by what my memories tell Of frequent deeds which caused thy heart to swell— That beauteous heart which ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... stands quite motionless, staring, with the street lamp lighting up a queer, rather pitiful defiance on his face. The voices swell. There comes a sudden swish and splash of water, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... brief transit to the dressing-table and back again, threw himself into a great high-backed arm-chair of stuffed leather at the far side of the fire, and placed his heels on the fender. His feet and legs seemed indistinctly to swell, and swathings showed themselves round them, and they grew into something enormous, and the upper figure swayed and shaped itself into corresponding proportions, a great mass of corpulence, with a cadaverous and malignant face, and the furrows of a great ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu

... them which were asleep;" that is, they will not be changed until their companions are called from the grave, etc. All being now "before the judgment seat of Christ,"—the "books are opened!" Oh, what emotions will swell and heave the bosoms of the righteous!—"joy unspeakable and full of glory:" for before the sentence of acquittal is publicly pronounced, their position on the Judge's right hand indicates the sentence. And next ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele

... coming in with a heavy swell in apprehension of a tempest, gathering in the distance, and casting as it advances a night of shade, while a parting glow is spread with fine effect upon the shore; the whole composition bold in design and masterly in execution. I am entirely unacquainted with ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse

... of the town, on the swell or crest of alluvial soil, of a light sandy loam foundation, an oblong public square, divided by a north and south street, contained the principal dwellings of the place, one of which was the Delaware State Capitol, a red-brick ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... settled to the level of the floor; but the quick drop through the long shaft seemed to do the stage-manager a disproportionate amount of good. Halfway down he emitted a heavy "Whew!" of relief and threw back his shoulders. He seemed to swell, to grow larger; lines verged into the texture of his face, disappearing; and with them went care and seeming years. Canby had casually taken him to be about forty, but so radical was the transformation of him that, as the distance ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington

... in the coffee-room. Everyone was curious to see my Lord Antony's swell friends from over the water. Miss Sally cast one or two quick glances at the little bit of mirror which hung on the wall, and worthy Mr. Jellyband bustled out in order to give the first welcome himself to his distinguished guests. Only the two strangers ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... long as men's haymaking lasts. I, too, will ride home, and be at home this summer; but when that Lord's day comes on which winter is eight weeks off, then I will let them sing me a mass at home, and afterwards ride west across Loomnips Sand; each of our men shall have two horses. I will not swell our company beyond those which have now taken the oath, for we have enough and to spare if all keep true tryst. I will ride all the Lord's day and the night as well, but at even on the second day of the week, I shall ride up to Threecorner ridge about mid-even. There shall ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... Louis, conducted a "Sweet Hour of Prayer," which closed the day's sessions, and the earnest group dissolved only to swell the throngs at the best meeting the ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 1, January, 1890 • Various

... "There's a press an' type an' the fixings in a room in the basement, an' Tom Linnet used to print a new card every day for all the three meals. He did it at night, you know, between two an' six o'clock, when nobody's ever around the hotel. They was swell bills-of-fare, but Tom claimed he couldn't do so much printin', although that's part o' the night clerk's duty, an' Pa thought it used up too much good cardboard at war-time prices. So now we jus' get out a new bill once a week, an' write the ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)

... force of the river Yuyapari which is toward the south and which he had not yet seen), with such great thundering and noise, that all were frightened and did not think to escape from it, and when the water of the sea withstood it, coming in opposition, the sea was raised making a great and very high swell[339-2] of water which raised the ship and placed it on top of the swell, a thing which was never heard of nor seen, and raised the anchors of the other ship which must have been already cast and forced it toward the sea, and the Admiral made sail to get away ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... "All right, young swell, I hope it will. Funny I feel such an interest in you, 'specially since that young greeny friend of yours put in a word for you. He's a real nice sort, he is—he owes you one, ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed

... grew; While on his tortured spirit rose, More dire than portents, toils, or foes, The awaiting World's loud jeers and scorn Yell'd o'er his profitless Return; No—none through that dark watch may trace The feelings wild beneath whose swell, As heaves the bark the billows' race, His Being rose and fell! Yet over doubt, and pride, and pain, O'er all that flash'd through breast and brain, As with those grand, immortal eyes He stood—his heart on fire to know When morning next illumed the skies, What wonders in its light should glow— ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... fault, it was a little too much fondness for figs); or, if ripe at all, they were overripe, and so sweet as to be distasteful. There was no mirth in his heart, such as usually made his voice gush out, of Its own accord, and swell the merriment of his companions. In short, he grew so uneasy and discontented that other children could not imagine what was the matter with Epimetheus. Neither did he himself know what ailed him, ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... middle of May, the bills of mortality began to swell greatly in amount, and though but few were put down to the plague, and a large number to the spotted fever (another frightful disorder raging at the period), it is well known that the bulk had died of the former disease. The rigorous measures ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... "Can you tell whether you will escape death?" "That I leave in God's hands." When she went to death, her purity and truth had so touched men's hearts that a great tide of remorse and pity began to swell up against her persecutors. A priest, who had played the part of Judas, and betrayed her, repented like Judas, and flung himself down before her, accusing himself of his treachery. The soldiers who stood by were melted. They said, "We have burned a ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... fierce head wind, and now and then a heavy spray broke on the bows, wetting everything forward. In the engine room preparations were made for taking indicator diagrams. No attempt was made to drive the boat fast, because high speeds are prohibited by the river authorities on account of the heavy swell set up. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various

... broad light, we left behind us the farthest outskirts of that great forest, that once spread unbroken from the western plains to the shore of the Atlantic. Looking over an intervening belt of shrubbery, we saw the green, oceanlike expanse of prairie, stretching swell ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... water) to unnerve all but the most intrepid of swimmers. Striking out in the direction of Newlyn, and using the breast stroke, the shore and beetling Mount were gradually left behind, but when a full distance of a mile and a half was covered, a swell got up from the S.W. and blew a quantity of water into the face of the swimmer. At each impulse progress becoming extremely difficult; nevertheless a yet further interval of half a mile was placed to the swimmer's credit; when, ...
— Original Letters and Biographic Epitomes • J. Atwood.Slater

... them. With regard to those cited on the authority of "R. Chambers," I cannot now say from which of Messrs. Chambers's publications I extracted them, but fancy it might have been the Cyclopaedia of English Literature. To any one disposed to swell the list of the remunerations of authors, I would suggest that Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature, Boswell's Life of Johnson, Johnson's Lives of the Poets and other works of every-day handling, would no doubt furnish many facts; ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 190, June 18, 1853 • Various

... supplies, collecting cattle, etc. Their knowledge of the country was greatly serviceable to Burgoyne. In the returns given of Burgoyne's regular troops, only the rank and file are accounted for. Staff and line officers would swell ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake

... well dressed in new clean clothes, probably gets the name from the Gipsy tove, to wash (German Gipsy Tovava). She is, so to speak, freshly washed. To this class belong Toff, a dandy; Tofficky, dressy or gay, and Toft, a dandy or swell. ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland

... Trampy, examined him, his shiny hat, his gold rings, his patent-leather shoes. A swell, Trampy, a toff, a gentleman like those in the ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... multiplied by the superstition of the times, which introduced into the church the splendid ceremonies of a Jewish or Pagan temple; and a long train of priests, deacons, sub-deacons, acolythes, exorcists, readers, singers, and doorkeepers, contributed, in their respective stations, to swell the pomp and harmony of religious worship. The clerical name and privileges were extended to many pious fraternities, who devoutly supported the ecclesiastical throne. [100] Six hundred parabolani, or adventurers, visited the sick at Alexandria; eleven hundred copiatoe, or grave-diggers, buried ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... Tangier, Tunis, Greece, Alexandria, and Jaffa. 'That'll be a smack in the eye for the big liners,' I said to myself. 'I'll skim the top layer of clotted cream off their passenger lists!' I was going to do the thing de luxe straight through—bid for the swell set, exclusiveness my motto. Of course I didn't expect to hit the dukes and dollar kings first shot, but I thought if everything went right the passengers would tell their friends at home how much better we did them on board than any one else had ever done, and we'd get a 'snowball' ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... them with a rush that year; swept a vivid flush of green over the parks and squares, all in a day; pumped the sap up madly into the little buds, so that they could hardly swell fast enough, and burst at last into a perfectly riotous fanfare through the shrubberies. It pumped blood, too, as well as sap, and made hearts flutter to strange irregular rhythms with the languorous insolence of its perfumes, ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... justice yield her fruit with sweetness, amongst the briars and brambles of catching and polling clerks, and ministers. The attendance of courts, is subject to four bad instruments. First, certain persons that are sowers of suits; which make the court swell, and the country pine. The second sort is of those, that engage courts in quarrels of jurisdiction, and are not truly amici curiae, but parasiti curiae, in puffing a court up beyond her bounds, for their ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... wondrous thoughts Each Christian breast must swell When, wandering back through ages past, With simple faith they dwell On quiet Nazareth's sacred sod, Where ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

... mutual handlings gave a certain amount of pleasing sensation; and, latterly, my eldest sister had discovered that the hooding and unhooding of my doodle, as she called it, instantly caused it to swell up and stiffen as hard as a piece of wood. My feeling of her little pinky slit gave rise in her to nice sensations, but on the slightest attempt to insert even my finger, the pain was too great. We had made so little progress in the attouchements ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... insinuate for a moment that the utmost energy and culture are not occasionally to be met with in the female portion of that interesting mass of our fellow-creatures who swell the large volumes of the "Landed Gentry." Among their ranks are those who come boldly forward into the full glare of public life; and, conscious of a genius for enterprise, to which an unmarried condition perhaps affords ampler scope, and which ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... spring in which Turgot died, Maurepas too came to his end, and Necker was dismissed. The last event was the signal at which the floods of the deluge fairly began to rise, and the revolutionary tide to swell. ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley

... hands, smiled and was very gracious, and Susan, shyly smiling, too, felt her heart swell with pride. When they went on together the little episode had subtly changed her attitude toward him; Susan was back for the moment in her old mood, wondering gratefully what the great man saw ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... but for him she would not have been there to speak; and Mr. Hastings, in his excitement and exasperation against poor Jonas, whose quarter paid for the liquor which had almost brought death into their home, and would help to swell Mr. Hastings' own cash account on this Saturday evening, recognized in this deliverer of his child poor, ignorant, degraded Tode Mall, and forgot the lapse of time and possible changes of position, and ...
— Three People • Pansy

... mo' en thee uh fo' yeahs ole when Miss Millie cum out in de kitchen one day, en 'gin tuh scold my mammy 'bout de sorry way mammy done clean de chitlins. Ah ain' nebber heard nobuddy fuss et my mammy befo'. Little ez Ah wuz, Ah swell up en rar' back, en I sez tuh Miss Millie, "Doan you no' Mammy is boss uh dis hyar kitchen. You cyan' cum a fussin' in hyar." "Miss Millie, she jus laff, but Mammy grab a switch en 'gin ticklin' my laigs, but Miss Millie mek her quit it." "Who wuz Miss Millie? ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... I remember saying to myself, as I sat down on a rickety chair, 'My good fellow, if you were in America with that fine face and your ready quill, you would have no need to be condescended to by a publisher.' Dickens was dressed very much as he has since described Dick Swiveller, minus the swell look. His hair was cropped close to his head, his clothes scant, though jauntily cut, and, after changing a ragged office-coat for a shabby blue, he stood by the door, collarless and buttoned up, the very personification, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... printing of them. Mr. Collinson then gave them to Cave for publication in his Gentleman's Magazine; but he chose to print them separately in a pamphlet, and Dr. Fothergill wrote the preface. Cave, it seems, judged rightly for his profit, for by the additions that arrived afterward, they swell'd to a quarto volume, which has had five editions, and cost him nothing ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... Commission disclosed that the expenditure of the leading English journal upon foreign news alone amounted to more than L. 50,000 in the course of one year, and that a year not characterized by any great war to swell the ordinary volume ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... hunt Boney out, sir," Dobbin said, rather alarmed at the fury of the old man, the veins of whose forehead began to swell, and who sate drumming his papers with his clenched fist. "We are going to hunt him out, sir—the Duke's in Belgium already, and we expect marching orders ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... they put on you like anythink." He flung all his worldly possessions into the empty bed-place, gauged with another shrewd look the risks of the proceeding, then leaped up to the Finn, who stood pensive and dull.—"I'll teach you to swell around," he yelled. "I'll plug your eyes for you, you blooming square-head." Most of the men were now in their bunks and the two had the forecastle clear to themselves. The development of the destitute Donkin aroused interest. He danced all in tatters before ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... poop of some great old battle-ship. Hollow-backed buttresses carry vases, which figure for the stern lanterns. There is a roll in the ground, and the towers just appear above the pitch of the roof, as though the good ship were bowing lazily over an Atlantic swell. At any moment it might be a hundred feet away from you, climbing the next billow. At any moment a window might open, and some old admiral thrust forth a cocked hat, and proceed to take an observation. The old admirals sail the ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "I think I can get over that. Perhaps you know that fish which live in very deep water, where the pressure is very great, cannot live if by any chance they are brought to the surface. The air-vessels in them swell out so that they cannot sink again, and ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn

... could not be noticed. If, indeed, slavery be so great a sin, would it not have been easier for the divine teacher to say, Let it be abolished, than to lay down so many minute precepts for its regulation? Would this have tended to swell the gospel into a vast library, or to abridge its teachings? Surely, when Dr. Wayland sets up such a plea, he must have forgotten that the New Testament, though it cannot notice "every thing," contains a multitude of rules to regulate the conduct ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... unfinished. But, after all, that question as to the amount of the bill is not to us the question of the greatest interest. Whether the debt shall amount to two, or three, or even to four hundred millions sterling; whether it remain fixed at its present modest dimensions, or swell itself out to the magnificent proportions of our British debt; will the resources of the country enable it to bear such a burden? Will it be found that the Americans share with us that elastic power of endurance ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... glided onward, rose and sank with the swell of the ocean; and presently, as she rose, I caught sight of what appeared to be a fleet of vessels at anchor. The next instant they had disappeared; but as she rose on the next swell I again caught sight of the seeming masts, which I gradually discovered ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston

... strongly, what the loss of other friends has also impressed on me, how much Death deepens our affection; and sharpens our regret for whatever has been even slightly amiss in our conduct towards those who are gone. What trifles then swell into painful importance; how we believe that, could the past be recalled, life would present no worthier, happier task, than that of so bearing ourselves towards those we love, that we might ever ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... faster than the growth of population. The number of juveniles in these institutions has more than trebled since 1868,[8] and it is unquestionable that if these youthful offenders were not confined there, a large proportion of them would immediately begin to swell the ranks of crime. That crime in England is not making more rapid strides than the growth of population, is almost entirely to be attributed to the ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison

... Ventimiglia, to where the Capo di Bordighera stood faintly outlined between sea and sky. There was not a solitary sail on the whole expanse of the Mediterranean. A line of white, curving at rhythmic intervals along a small patch of sandy beach, showed that there was a gentle swell upon the sea, but its surface was mirror-like. A lovelier scene there is not in the world, and it was at its very loveliest. I took the Saturday Review from my pocket, and was soon immersed in an article on ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various

... swell Saturday afternoon at our house with bright sunlight on the snow and the weather just right for coasting. I was standing by our kitchen sink, getting ready to start wiping a big stack of dishes which my mom had just rinsed with ...
— Shenanigans at Sugar Creek • Paul Hutchens

... don't come down here to dine, you know, they only make believe to dine. They dine here, Law bless you! They go to some of the swell clubs, or else to some grand dinner-party. You see their names in the Morning Post at all the fine parties in London. Why, I bet anything that Ringwood has his cab, or Trail his Brougham (he's a devil of a fellow, and makes the bishop's money spin, I can tell you) at the corner ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... continued the gentleman in the velvet coat, "and I must confess that they're the most trifling push I ever saw. There's the manager, a feeble rat of a man; another fellow that's short-sighted and wears specs.; a boy, and the teller, a swell who wears gloves on his boots and looks as if he ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... care as you would buy a pair of scissors, who think, if you ever think, and I have already said that you do not, that because there are fifty thousand tasteless people in the world there is no reason why you should not swell that crowd, you are responsible for the decay of the novel. Traditions are dying, helped to their death by prize competitions and personal paragraphs, and Oxford is the home of tradition, for Oxford was invented before Eton. We care no longer ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, Despite these titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale

... operation by which water is combined with lime is called slaking. Take a piece of quick lime, common lime used in mortar, and immerse it in warm water for about fifteen seconds; then place it in an iron or tin vessel. It will soon begin to swell, evolving a great deal of heat and emitting steam, and soon falls into a fine powder, hydrate of lime. This should be well stirred and allowed to cool, and then bottled in order to prevent it from giving off the hydrate and recovering the carbonic acid from the atmosphere. The last ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey

... summit of a heavy swell of land, and consisted of a village of seventy wigwams, surrounded by a palisade. These palisades consisted of posts planted side by side, and so high that they could not be climbed over. The warriors stationed behind them were safe apparently from assault, for ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... spirit did not come, she returned to the surface of the earth and went on a voyage of search in a boat that a god had lent to her,—a boat of cowrie shell, which in overland travel would shrink so that it could be carried in the hand; then, at the word, would swell to a stately barge of pearl with ivory masts and sails as white as the snow on the mountain. This vessel moved with the speed of the wind in any direction the occupant indicated by pointing the finger. The prince's wandering ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... remained so all night. I saw the twinkling of a small light farther along in a cove, and fired a gun, but got no answer, and soon the light disappeared altogether. I heard the sea booming against the cliffs all night, and realized that the ocean swell was still great, although from the deck of my little ship it was apparently small. From the cry of animals in the hills, which sounded fainter and fainter through the night, I judged that a light current was drifting ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum

... I was thinking at the time of something else. She is a woman, good Orange, and all women expect that every one shall submit passively to their gentle yoke; that every Hercules shall lay aside his lion's skin, assume the distaff, and swell their train; and, because they are themselves peaceably inclined, imagine forsooth, that the ferment which seizes a nation, the storm which powerful rivals excite against one another, may be allayed by one soothing word, and the most discordant elements be brought to unite in tranquil ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... for and dig up the soaproot, that onion-like bulb of one of the lily family with which the Indians make a soapy lather to wash their clothes. Let us hope you will know and keep away from the "poison-oak," the low bush with pretty red leaves, for its leaves are apt to make your skin swell up and blister ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton

... projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that it will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman

... generally flat, though occasionally it assumed a little of the character of what is called the rolling prairie. The Indian towns were always built upon some gentle swell of land. Where this could not be found, they often constructed artificial mounds of earth, sufficient in extent to contain from ten to twenty houses. Upon one of these the chief and his immediate attendants would rear their dwellings, while the more humble ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott

... despite his protestations, was evidently not displeased at the notion of his possible honours, "I don't profess to be much of a swell in school; but—I don't know—I fancy I could keep order rather better than he could. The fellows ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... the first night in Vinland had been spent so pleasantly; caught an offshore breeze that carried them swiftly beyond the island betwixt which and the shore they had captured the whale, and finally leaped out upon the swell of ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... slavery time. Old man Wash Woodberry, he was rough wid his niggers, but dem what lived on Miss Susan Stevenson's plantation, dey been fare good all de time. I know what I talk bout cause I been marry Cato Gause en he tell me dey been live swell to Miss Susan's plantation. Dat whe' he been born en raise up. Hear Pa Cudjo talk bout dat Miss Harriet Woodberry whip my mother one day en she run away en went down in Woodberry en stayed a long time. Say, some of de Woodberry niggers stayed down dere till after freedom come here. Yes, ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... might, without assistance, be eliminated in the rough-and-tumble of the literary market-place. Of course it was but human for the veterans to insist that any real genius among their youthful competitors "would out," and that any assistance would but make life too soft for the youngsters, and go to swell the growing "menace" of bad verse by mitigating the primal rigors of natural selection. No doubt the generation of writers older than Wordsworth quite innocently uttered these very same sentiments in voices of deep authority when it was proposed to offer this young person a chance to compose ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler

... felt him studying her over his cigarette, studying her averted gaze, the bright color in her cheeks, the curves of her lips, and he was puzzled and perturbed by the sweet, baffling beauty of her. A wild elation began to swell his heart. His eyes glowed, his blood burned with the triumph, not so much of his daring capture of her, but of the flattering tribute that her pretty ways were paying toward his personality alone. Wary as he was, cynical of subterfuge, he did not penetrate her guard. His monstrous vanity ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... son; I can see an inch or two beyond my nose. If Dorothy ever finds her way back to England she'll spoil one of the finest fields of legitimate graft I ever licked my lips to look at. The trouble with you, Mul, is you're too high-toned. You want to play the swell mobs-man from post to finish. A quick touch and a clean getaway for yours. Now, that's all right; that has its good points, but you don't want to underestimate the advantages of a good blackmailing ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... season, the rivers swell and overflow the adjacent shores, and run down with such continued rapidity, that the water may be tasted fresh at sea at the distance of six or seven miles from the mouths: these overflowings fertilize the banks and adjacent country, and render the shores of Borneo, like the plains of Egypt, ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... inevitably set up monopolies. The "Trusts" were to these what the elephant is to a colt. When the United States Steel Corporation was formed by uniting eleven large steel plants, with an aggregate capital of $11100,000,000, the American people had an inkling of the magnitude to which Trusts might swell. In like fashion when the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern Railroads found a legal impediment to their being run by one management, they got round the law by organizing the Northern Securities Company, which was to hold the stocks ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... business," Reid went on, "pretty women are only employed as lures for men. Swell milliners have 'em to overawe with their great grieving eyes the Hubbies who're inclined to kick at market rates for bonnets. Now there's dry goods, chief theme of half the race. You'd think there'd be a show there for a pretty girl; well, there ain't. It's retail ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark

... Charles promised always to style Henry "our most illustrious son, Henry, King of England, heir of France." After Charles's death, the two kingdoms of England and France were to be for ever united under one King. Many other articles swell this solemn league, which are all subservient to these ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... now his turn to be silent, and he remained so for some time, his eyes fixed on the shadowing heavens. The waves were roughening slightly and a swell from the Atlantic lifted the 'Diana' curtsying over their foam-flecked crests as she ploughed her way swiftly along. Presently he turned to me with ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... the force of each State into a narrow channel of its own, with its little saw-mill and its little grist-mill for local needs, instead of letting it follow the slopes of the continental water-shed to swell the volume of one great current ample for the larger uses and needful for the higher civilization of all. That there should always be a school who interpret the Constitution by its letter is a good thing, as interposing a ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... cave, beautiful as it is, and compare it with the reflections of the English adventurer in his solitary place of confinement. The thoughts of home, and of all from which he is for ever cut off, swell and press against his bosom, as the heaving ocean rolls its ceaseless tide against the rocky shore, and the very beatings of his heart become audible in the eternal silence that surrounds him. ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... any of his tribe. He made the old man forget his genealogies, his small ambition, his gout, his years, and be a boy again an hour or two in thought, and blood, and early fire. He made the women's bosoms pant and swell, and seem to aspire to be the nests and cradles of heroes, and their eyes flash and glisten, and their cheeks flush and grow pale by turns; and the four little papered walls that confined them seemed to fall without noise, and they were ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... lit out after that and beat it down the line as fast as we could. We got the rest of the boys together; I had a swell job planned up. Everything staked. Then, the first news come that Donnegan ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand

... O' course it's my name. My father was billiard-marker at Casey's Hotel, Dandaloo," said the old man with conscious pride. "A swell he had been, but the boose done him up, like many a better man. He used to write to people over in England for money, but ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson



Words linked to "Swell" :   distend, well up, beau, Beau Brummell, arise, puff up, puff out, come up, bulk, belly, grow, Brummell, do, moving ridge, vesicate, rise up, intumesce, blow up, colloquialism, bulge, tumesce, macaroni, dude, great, originate, slap-up, nifty, elevation, heavy swell, uprise, wave, fashion plate, man, corking, peachy, well, cockscomb, fop, behave, crescendo, bang-up, gallant, crestless wave



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