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adjective
Swell  adj.  Having the characteristics of a person of rank and importance; showy; dandified; distinguished; as, a swell person; a swell neighborhood. (Slang)
Swell mob. See under Mob. (Slang)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Swell" Quotes from Famous Books



... what set this king on fire, To practise warre when he of peace did treat, It was his Pride, and neuer quencht desire, To spoile that Islands wealth, by peace made great: His Pride which farre aboue the heauens did swell And his desire as vnsuffic'd ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt

... memorable duels which are talked over at clubs and in armories. If Pietrapertosa and Cibo had ceased since morning to believe in the jettatura of the "some one" whom neither had named, it must be acknowledged that they were very unjust, for the good fortune of having gained something wherewith to swell their Parisian purses was surely naught by the side of this—to have to discuss with the Cavals, the Machaults and other professionals the case, almost unprecedented, in which they ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... "Now I can prove that you are entirely wrong. Where- -were you?—This room is rather an improvement over the one we had last winter. There is more of a view"—she goes to the window—"of the houses across the Place; and I always think the swell front gives a pretty shape to a room. I'm sorry they've stopped building them. Your piano goes very nicely into that little alcove. Yes, we're quite palatial. And, on the whole, I'm glad there's no fireplace. It's a pleasure at times; but for the most part it's a vanity and a vexation, getting dust ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... passed before him, the unknown, who had leant forward over the balcony to obtain a better view, and who had concealed his face by leaning on his arm, felt his heart swell and overflow with ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... surprise and the admiration of his adversary. All natural talk is a festival of ostentation; and by the laws of the game each accepts and fans the vanity of the other. It is from that reason that we venture to lay ourselves so open, that we dare to be so warmly eloquent, and that we swell in each other's eyes to such a vast proportion. For talkers, once launched, begin to overflow the limits of their ordinary selves, tower up to the height of their secret pretensions, and give themselves out for the heroes, brave, pious, musical and wise, that ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... sprang on the poop, saw the vessel, and ordered the men to come aft in silence. The tramp of the soldiers' feet was scarcely over when the lugger was alongside of us, her masts banging against our main and mizen chains as she rolled with the swell under our lee. The Frenchmen gave a cheer, which told us how very numerous they were: they climbed up the side and into the chains like cats, and in a few seconds all was noise, confusion, and smoke. It was impossible to know ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... eyelids and circum-orbital region—the ordinary "black eye"—is associated with extravasation of blood into the loose cellular tissue of these parts, and is followed within a few hours of the injury by marked ecchymosis. The lids may swell to such an extent that the eye is completely closed. In some cases the impinging object lacerates the vessels of the conjunctiva and produces a sub-conjunctival ecchymosis, which may be situated under the palpebral conjunctiva of the lower lid, ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... 5th we made an excursion for the purpose of trying our canoe. A heavy gale came on in the evening which caused a great swell in the lake and in crossing the waves we had the satisfaction to find that our birchen vessel ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... spots amidst the barren sands. At the central station of St. Mary's alone, three thousand Indians received hospitality in the course of one year. Undeterred by the certainty of privation and suffering, new missioners continued to swell the ranks and aid the work. With indefatigable zeal and unwearied patience, they catechised, exhorted, consoled, encouraged. The morning hours, from four until eight, were reserved for their private devotions; the remainder ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"

... times convenient, Was not so necessary; for they tell That she was handsome, and though fierce looked lenient, And always used her favourites too well. If once beyond her boudoir's precincts in ye went, Your "fortune" was in a fair way "to swell A man" (as Giles says);[516] for though she would widow all Nations, she liked Man as ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... return to the manuscript," said Patricia gravely. "Where is it? 'His birthday.' Oh, yes. 'Don't you three girls want to go to the matinee with us and have lunch at some swell joint? Write me at once if you can go. We will be in on the eleven-fifteen at the Terminal and have to leave on the 4.30. Yours,' et cetera and so on, and all that stuff. Hallelujah, good gentleman, ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther

... friend, and ultimately his brother-in-law, to whom many of Byron's first series of letters from abroad are addressed—and Robert Charles Dallas, a name surrounded with various associations, who played a not insignificant part in Byron's history, and, after his death, helped to swell the throng of his annotators. This gentleman, a connexion by marriage, and author of some now forgotten novels, first made acquaintance with the poet in London early in 1808, when we have two letters from Byron, in answer ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... tree-covered ridge ran like the swell of a green sea between the plant and the town. He stopped on top of it, where the town was almost hidden from view, and looked out across the wide valley. Shadows moved lazily across it as cotton-puff clouds ...
— The Helpful Hand of God • Tom Godwin

... to my time. Every chap that's a bit of a swell nowadays must be a bit of a tough. It's smart, ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand

... shut. Harper—"Bush" Harper, he was called—was a right-hand man of Mike Scully, the Democratic boss of the stockyards; and in the coming election there was a peculiar situation. There had come to Scully a proposition to nominate a certain rich brewer who lived upon a swell boulevard that skirted the district, and who coveted the big badge and the "honorable" of an alderman. The brewer was a Jew, and had no brains, but he was harmless, and would put up a rare campaign fund. Scully ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... people of France, as well as all the financiers and politicians, are here! It's something more even than a swell Parisian wedding." ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... sharp than his daughters' unkindness. For many miles about there was scarce a bush; and there upon a heath, exposed to the fury of the storm in a dark night, did King Lear wander out, and defy the winds and the thunder; and he bid the winds to blow the earth into the sea, or swell the waves of the sea till they drowned the earth, that no token might remain of any such ungrateful animal as man. The old king was now left with no other companion than the poor fool, who still abided with him, with his merry conceits striving to outjest misfortune, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... the shivering Flitch from the scene of their success and consternation was not ten miles on its way when his nerves and mind began to regain their normal steadiness and order. Another five miles, and the germ of a fresh plot began to swell in his brain—perhaps the ugliest, grimmest plot yet conceived and developed in that defiled temple. It was a crude plot, too, and quite unworthy of Francis Bullard, as he would have realised for himself had he not been obsessed by the new conviction that the real diamonds, now virtually ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell

... affairs. And does he suppose that there is a corporate vice, or virtue, differing from his private vice or virtue, as a gentleman's purse differs from the public fund? There is no such distinction in moral qualities. It is your own coin that helps swell the amount; it bears your stamp, and you are responsible for the product. If the party lies, then you are guilty of falsehood. If the party—as is very likely—does a mean thing, then you do it. It is surely so, so far as you are one of the party, and go with it ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... the tidings swell o'er ocean To another shore, Till proud England pales and trembles Where she scoffed before! Ne'er again shall serpent-friendship Rise to hiss and sting! Cotton leagues no more with Traitors: Honest Corn is King! Jubilate! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... an' a jerry 'at—hum! You're a young nob, you are, a swell, a tippy, a go—that's what you are! Wherefore and therefore I ask what you might be a-doing in this here wood ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... bound to the depths profound, She rushes with proud disdain, While pale lips tell the fears that swell, Lest she never should rise again. With a courser's pride she paws the tide, Unbridled by bit I trow, While the churlish sea she dashes with glee In a cataract from her prow. Then a ho and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... possessors of votes! At the butcher's shop, the owner, in his apron and sleeves, stoutly refused his vote, except on one condition—"Would her Grace give him a kiss?" The request was granted; and the vote thus purchased went to swell the majority which finally secured the return of "The ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... Spaniards were killed, and many wounded, five of whom died on board. The wounded men endured excruciating pain while in the boats, in consequence of their wounds being wet with sea water, which caused them to swell much. All the people cursed the pilot Alaminos for bringing them to this place, who still persisted that this country was an island. They called this place Bahia de Mala Prelea, or the Bay of Evil Battle, on account ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... shriek (ye must have heard him) an' all the boys come runnin' and crowdin' round him and starin' so frightened at me, an' his brother yelled at him to keep quiet or something or somebody'd get him, and he kept quiet that sudden I could fairly see the child swell. He's unnatural still and unnatural full, ma'am, an' the Doctor ...
— When the Yule Log Burns - A Christmas Story • Leona Dalrymple

... it rather to necessity than choice, that I shall continue it to two volumes more, which the number of the single tracts which have been discovered, makes indispensably requisite. I need not tell those who are acquainted with affairs of this kind, how much pamphlets swell a catalogue, since the title of the least book may be as long as ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... the streak of the wake and half out of it, I perceived the sleeve of a white jacket, and, near to it, a soft felt hat. The sleeve rose up once into clear view, seemed to describe a half-circle in the air then sink back again into the glassy swell of the water. Only the hat remained floating upon ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... ARE a swell! There are only four genuine maids in Simla that I know of—the rest are really nurse-girls. What a comfort she must be! THE luxury of all others that I long for; but alas! army pay, you know. I did once bring a dear ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... triumphal entry into the Gulf. As it takes its way southward pine forests wave their salutes, then wheat fields, then corn fields, and, later, cotton fields. Then its tributaries may be seen coming upon the stage to help swell the mighty sweep of progress toward the sea. When geography is taught as a drama, appreciation ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... Nithard, "faithful to his mother and to him, and having nothing more to lose than life or limb, chose rather to die gloriously than to betray their King." The arrival of Louis the Germanic with his troops helped to swell the forces and increase the confidence of Charles; and it was on the 21st of June, 841, exactly a year after the death of Louis the Debonair, that the two armies, that of Lothair and Pepin on the one side, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... we advanced along its downward course, for smaller streams came pouring in to swell its tide. The banks were still covered with heavy timber, and in some places with quite thick undergrowth. One day we saw a black bear in the river washing himself, but he went ashore before we were ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... of the young bride, the Archduchess of Austria, who was about to be installed Dauphine of France, was at hand, and she came to meet scarcely a friend, and many foes—of whom even her beauty, her gentleness, and her simplicity, were doomed to swell ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... in it," said Dick, with charming candor. "We've never set eyes on any of her swell connections, and I don't think she's ever heard from them ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... illustrate that of some other people," said Mrs. Westgate. "The Duke of Green-Erin is what they call in England a great swell, and some five years ago he came to America. He spent most of his time in New York, and in New York he spent his days and his nights at the Butterworths'. You have heard, at least, of the Butterworths. Bien. They did everything in the world for him—they turned ...
— An International Episode • Henry James

... consequence and fruit of all this; and what so intolerable a burden as guilt! They talk of the stones, and of the sands of the sea; but it is guilt that breaks the heart with its burden. And Satan has the art of making the uttermost of every sin; he can blow it up, make it swell, make every hair of its head as big as a cedar. He can tell how to make it a heinous offence, and unpardonable offence, an offence of that continuance, and committed against so much light, that, says he, it is impossible it should ever be forgiven. But, soul, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... embraces of a fond mother, or devoted father, or the smiles of fraternal or sisterly affection. If ever allowed to speak at all, it is through iron bars where she cannot be seen, and in the presence of the abbess, to see that no complaint escapes her lips. However much her bosom may swell with anxiety at the sound of voices which were once music to her soul, and she may long to pour out her cries and tears to those who once soothed every sorrow of her heart; yet not a murmur must be uttered. The soul must suffer its own sorrows solitary and alone, ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... under the glow of our southern sun. Any one who has seen a regiment from Ohio or Maine knows how true these statements were. And besides, the newspapers did not mention the English, Irish, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Swiss, Portuguese, and negroes, who were to swell the numbers of the enemy, and as our army grew less make his larger. True, there was not much fight in all this rubbish, but they answered well enough for drivers of wagons and ambulances, guarding stores and lines of communication, and doing all sorts of duty, while the ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy

... fire to warm themselves. The only food they were able to procure consisted in a few muscles and other shell-fish, which they picked up along the shore. Thirteen of the company were lodged in one of the tents, and three in the other. The smoke of the wet wood caused their faces and eyes to swell so much that they were afraid of becoming totally blind; and, what added prodigiously to their sufferings, they were almost devoured by lice and maggots, which they threw by handfuls into the fire. The secretary of Quirini had the flesh on his neck eaten bare ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... see, it's to learn our job. We have to be told what used to go on, so as we can put things right, or keep them right. And the owls, you see, they remember a long way back, but they don't know any more than we do about the swell things." ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James

... commonly employed for the encouragement, and consequent demoralization of, a primary class. Andy realized that he was being talked down to, and his combativeness awoke. "Well, away back in my home town, a woman's club has been thinking of all you lonely fellows, and have felt their hearts swell with a desire to help you—so far from home and mother's influence, with only the coarse pleasures of the West, and amid all the temptations that lie in wait—" She caught herself back from speech-making—"and they have sent me—away ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... suddenly stepped out and assailed the whole Austro-German line with fire and steel. The weight of the blow fell between the Pripet Marshes and the Rumanian frontier. From this front Germany had drawn many troops to aid in her Verdun operation, Austria had made similar drafts to swell her forces attacking Italy. Too late Berlin and Vienna realized that they had weakened their line beyond the danger point and had hopelessly underestimated the recuperative ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... hurt. But they are coming around to it now. A United States Senator telegraphs me: "Send my wife and daughter home on the first ship." Ladies and gentlemen filled the steerage of that ship—not a bunk left; and his wife and daughter are found three days later sitting in a swell hotel waiting for me to bring them stateroom tickets on a silver tray! One of my young fellows in the Embassy rushes into my office saying that a man from Boston, with letters of introduction from Senators and Governors and Secretaries, et al., was demanding ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... to the ship's form, Sir Allen Young says: "I do not think the form of the ship is any great point, for, when a ship is fairly nipped, the question is if there is any swell or movement of the ice to lift the ship. If there is no swell the ice must go through her, whatever material ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... or rather apprehension of refusal, having withheld me from striving to gain admittance within the body. But my situation was a singularly good one: opposite the altar. I looked, and beheld this vast clerical congregation at times kneeling, or standing, or sitting: partially, or wholly: while the swell of their voices, accompanied by the full intonations of the organ, and the yet more penetrating notes of the serpent, seemed to breathe more than earthly solemnity around. The ceremony had now continued full two hours; when, in the midst ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... sure, as Hindu legends tell, When music's tones the bosom swell, The scenes of former life return; Ere, sunk beneath the morning star, We left our parent climes afar, Immured in ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... heart. Thus disease of the valves of the heart, may obstruct the free flow of blood and thus retard its circulution. In consequence the pulse grows small and weak, and the patient cannot exercise or labor as usual, and finally the lower limbs begin to swell, then the face and body, the skin looks dusky, the appetite is impaired, the kidneys become diseased, there is difficulty in breathing, and the patient, it is said, dies of dropsy, yet dropsy was the result of a disease ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... great shadows stretching from the light Look like the first colossal steps of Night Stretching across the valley to invade The distant hills of porphyry with their shade. Around, as signals of the setting beam, Gay, gilded flags on every housetop gleam: While, hark!—from all the temples a rich swell Of music ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... five A.M. we rounded Point Everitt, and then encountered a strong breeze and heavy swell, which by causing the canoes to pitch very much, greatly impeded our progress. Some deer being seen grazing in a valley near the beach, we landed and sent St. Germain and Adam in pursuit of them, who soon killed three which were very small and lean. Their appearance, however, quite revived ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin

... What do I care for a hell for oppressors? What good can hell do, since those children have already been tortured? And what becomes of harmony, if there is hell? I want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don't want more suffering. And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price. I don't want the mother to embrace the oppressor who threw her son to the dogs! She dare not forgive ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... of the Austrian States, but of all Germany, had been insulted and oppressed beyond all hope of reconciliation. They dreaded the papal emperor more than the Mohammedan sultan. They were ready to hail Botskoi as their deliverer from intolerable despotism, and to swell the ranks of his army. Botskoi was a Protestant, and the sympathies of the Protestants all over Germany were with him. Elated by his advance, the Protestants withheld all contributions from the emperor, and began to ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... us the most prosperous, and ere long will, if preserved, render us the most powerful, nation on the face of the earth. In every foreign region of the globe the title of American citizen is held in the highest respect, and when pronounced in a foreign land it causes the hearts of our countrymen to swell with honest pride. Surely when we reach the brink of the yawning abyss we shall recoil with horror ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... few red-coated linesmen lounging on the Tower Quay. Careful mariners were getting out their side-lights, and careless lightermen were progressing by easy bumps from craft to craft on their way up the river. A tug, half burying itself in its own swell, rushed panting by, and a faint scream came from aboard an approaching skiff as ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs

... Territories, where a refuge is found not only for our native-born fellow-citizens, but for emigrants from all parts of the civilized world, who come among us to partake of the blessings of our free institutions and to aid by their labor to swell the current of our wealth ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Tyler • John Tyler

... fake steer; this Charley-boy hasn't got anything to do with it, that I know of. Maybe the big guy thought he hadn't got out of the way, and sent me to find out. No use my hanging round here any longer, anyhow. I'll amble back and tell Pad he's gone. Swell dame, that Annie—some queen, eh? Let's have one more drink and ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... of security with such appalling suddenness, gave way to an outburst of panic and fury; which was the less controllable because so very large a proportion of the better and stronger element among the men had gone forth to swell the ranks of the Confederate army. As in a revolution in a South American city, the street doors were closed by the tradesmen upon the property in their stores; but without began a scene of mad destruction, which has since been forcibly portrayed ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... at least, calling me Mr. Balfour, and plainly speaking from a lesson; but he got not very far, for at the first pompous swell of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the farmers longed for rain on their parched fields. To me, while on the beach among the boats, the value of these clouds lies in their slowness of movement, and consequent effect in soothing the mind. Outside the hurry and drive of life a rest comes through the calm of nature. As the swell of the sea carries up the pebbles, and arranges the largest farthest inland, where they accumulate and stay unmoved, so the drifting of the clouds, and the touch of the wind, the sound of the surge, arrange the molecules of the mind in still layers. It is then that a ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... glen were masses of rock and precipices, just large enough to give sufficient wildness and picturesque beauty to a view which in itself was calm and serene. In the distance about a mile to the north, stood out a bold but storm-vexed headland, that heaved back the mighty swell of the Atlantic, of which a glimpse could be caught from an eminence above the village. Nothing indeed could be finer than the booming fury of the giant billows, as they shivered themselves into spray, and thundered ...
— Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... but a careful observer might have noticed the veins on his forehead swell. He measured Rolla and Robeckal with a peculiar look, and before his ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere

... the birds in winter," interrupted George, careful not to swell too suddenly any of the air-bags with which he would float Helen's belief. He knew wisely, and he knew how, to leave a hint to work while it was yet not half understood. By the time it was understood, it would have grown a little familiar: ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... way of concluding, we shall proceed to give our classical prose-writer the promised examples of his style which we have collected. Schopenhauer would probably have classed the whole lot as "new documents serving to swell the trumpery jargon of the present day"; for David Strauss may be comforted to hear (if what follows can be regarded as a comfort at all) that everybody now writes as he does; some, of course, worse, ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... friend in the same strain. Often did his heart swell within him as he had to address the dying youth, and many a time he dashed away from his eyes the fast-falling tears as he thought that in a few days they must part, never again to meet in this world. He had seen several ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston

... well as to carry on the correspondence needful for discovering the relatives of long-separated emigrants—often a difficult task. We determined to work thus until the labourers' remittances should swell to such an amount as would render it worth the attention of bankers as a matter of business, if the society were not inclined to continue ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various

... the upper Jordan, and, southwards, up the Wady Arabah, until it reached some 260 feet above the level of the Mediterranean, when it would attain a permanent level, by sending any superfluity through the pass of Jezrael to swell the waters of the Kishon, and flow thence into ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley

... Copyright 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 of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... surprise of the end, or denouement, as in a logical syllogism the premisses are nothing but as they necessitate the conclusion. In the sonnet the emphasis is nearly, but not quite, equally distributed, there being a slight swell, or rise, about its middle. The sonnet must not advance by progressive climax, or end abruptly; it should subside, and leave ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... their northern lair With intermittent swell, The keen winds grumbled loud and long, To Ronald's turn it fell Close to the shore to keep ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... GREAT whilst others crawl, Our sovereign peeps into the world of SMALL; Thus microscopic genuises explore Things that too oft provoke the public scorn, Yet swell of useful knowledges the store, By finding ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... ocean at my feet. Ear below, the waves broke with a soothing murmur that scarce could reach my ears and the gray gulls were playing here and there like shadows of half forgotten dreams. In the distance, the fishing boats rolled lazily on the gentle swell and the sunlight danced upon the surface of the sea. Then, as I looked, on the far horizon the storm chieftain gathered his clans for war. I saw the red banners flashing. I watched the hurried movements of the ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright

... thou pansy, purple-eyed, And greet the dewy spring; Swell out, ye buds, and o'er the ...
— Love or Fame; and Other Poems • Fannie Isabelle Sherrick

... and children are locked in there with no useful employment,—except in that at Manchester,—nothing to do but to impart and study lessons of crime; and some manage to remain there the most of the time, preferring this to honest labor. These all go to swell the burdens of the tax-payer. Why not have some sort of industries connected with these places? Set these fellows at work on something. Keep them out of idleness, so far as can be. If the employment does not bring in largely of dollars and cents, it will, in what ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby

... ungodly, though godly, that he may be justified by faith (Rom. iv. 5), he must forsake himself, that he may indeed find himself, or get a better self in another, he must not eat much honey, that is not good, it would swell him though it be pleasant, he must not search his own glory, or reflect much upon it, if he would be a follower and a friend of Christ. Look, how much soever you engage to yourselves esteem, or desire to be esteemed of others, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... complaint appears, at the beginning, in scurfy spots upon different parts of the body, which finally settle upon the hands or feet, where the skin becomes withered, and cracks in many places. At length, the ends of the fingers swell and ulcerate, the discharge is acrid and foetid; the nails drop off, and the bones of the fingers become carious, and separate at the joints. In this manner the disease continues to spread, frequently until ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... which there is no exact name, works out of sight in answer to the sun. Seen or unseen, clouded or not, every day the sun lifts itself an inch higher, and let the north wind shrivel as it may, this invisible potency compels the bud to swell and the flower to be ready in its calyx. Progress goes on in spite of every discouragement. The birch trees reddened all along their slender boughs, and when the sunlight struck aslant, the shining bark shone like gossamer threads wet ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... He is up again! He is on my Jack! Now, for your life, Jack, and for me! You've never failed me yet. [The cheers without now swell to full volume and are taken up by those on the stage. The horse sweeps by with GENERAL SHERIDAN.] Jack! Jack!! Jack!!! [Waving her arms as he passes. She throws up her arms and falls backward, caught by DUNN. The stream of men is reversed and surges across ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard

... but few laws, and such is their constitution that they need not many. They very much condemn other nations, whose laws, together with the commentaries on them, swell up to so many volumes; for they think it an unreasonable thing to oblige men to obey a body of laws that are both of such a bulk, and so dark as not to be read and understood by every one of ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... the great need of mankind. A pure af- fection, concentric, forgetting self, forgiving wrongs and forestalling them, should swell the lyre of ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... but the fear was illusory. Small particles of soil trickle down the sides of every drain, and the first flow of water will deposit them in the vacant space between the two collars. The bottom, if at all soft, will also swell up into any vacancy. Practically, if you reopen a drain well laid with pipes and collars, you will find them reposing in a beautiful nidus, which, when they are carefully removed, looks exactly as if it had ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring

... this amusing outrage can be no other than the swell mobsman who relieved Lady Melrose of her necklace and poor Danby of half his stock ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... city had been full of provincials attracted from all parts of the country to swell the triumph of their idol Ferdinand on his accession to the throne. They returned to their homes inspired with hatred for the French and with bitter scorn for the pretexts on which Spain and Portugal had been torn from a commercial system that brought them ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... Jimmie, what my getting you out of it to a decent job in a department store has begun to do for you. And you're making good, too. Higgins told me to-day, if you don't let your head swell, there won't be a fellow in the department can stack up ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... By noon we had reached the group of Pangootaaraang, consisting of five small islands. All of these are low, covered with trees, and without lagoons. They presented a great contrast to Sulu, which was seen behind us in the distance. The absence of the swell of the ocean in sailing through this sea is striking, and gives the idea of navigating an extensive bay, on whose luxuriant islands no surf breaks. There are, however, sources of danger that incite the navigator to watchfulness ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... last note the bands burst out with a crash: and woke the mountains with the "Star-Spangled Banner" in a way to make a body's heart swell and thump and his hair rise! It was enough to break a person all up, to see Cathy's radiant face shining out through her gladness and tears. By request she blew the "assembly," ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... grow at their base, on their rifted sides, and even on their majestic tops, where the clouds seem to repose. The showers, which their bold points attract, often paint the vivid colours of the rainbow on their green and brown declivities, and swell the sources of the little river which flows at their feet, called the river ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... round the sections next them. When there are a great many plates the back margin of each, to which a guard will be attached, must be pared (see fig. 11, A), or the additional thickness caused by the guards will make the back swell unduly. In guarding plates a number can be pasted at once if they are laid one on another, with about an eighth of an inch of the back of each exposed, the top of the pile being protected by a folded piece of waste paper (see fig. 12). To ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell

... springy, step. His hair, which he wears rather long, is always carefully parted in the middle, and he is always freshly shaven. His habit of filling the pockets of his frock-coat with bundles of notes has made that garment swell out at the top into the shape of a basket. He puts on a pair of spectacles mounted in very thin gold, and reads determinedly, very few books it is true, but they are all bound in vellum, and that fixes their date. In his way of turning the leaves there is something ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin

... does not fall within these limits it must be corrected by soaking the powder before chroming for twenty minutes in ten to twelve times its weight of water, to which the requisite calculated quantity of standard alkali or acid has been added. The hide powder must not swell in chroming to such an extent as to render difficult the necessary squeezing to 70-75 per cent. of water, and must be sufficiently free from soluble organic matter to render it possible in the ordinary washing to reduce the total solubles in a blank experiment with distilled water ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser

... a look of furious contempt over his abject figure, then gave a laugh that fell on the silence bitter as a curse. Daddy John without a word moved off and began unhitching the mules. Even in Susan pity was, for the moment, choked by a swell of disgust. Had she not had the other men to measure him by, had she not within her own sturdy frame felt the spirit still strong for conflict, she might still have known only the woman's sympathy for ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... carried. People passing down the street hesitated, listening. The neighbours knew it was Aaron practising his piccolo. He was esteemed a good player: was in request at concerts and dances, also at swell balls. So the vivid piping ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... vessels under convoy of a sloop of war. The former were well manned, two of them mounting sixteen guns each. Notwithstanding the apparent disparity of force. Captain Jones determined to hazard an attack; and as the weather was boisterous, and the swell of the sea unusually high, he ordered down top-gallant yards, closely reefed the top-sails, and prepared for action. We cannot give a detail of this brilliant engagement, which resulted in the capture of the Frolic. It was one of the most ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various

... Anna, after they had pushed the boat off, and began to feel the hoist of the swell. "I ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... witnessed in the last few decades would have been impossible without the electric generator and motor, both gifts of Faraday to the world. Their application in this direction must, therefore, go to swell the debt our civilization owes to the labors ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... that the author of the Spectator was afflicted with a dropsy, or some such inflated malady, to which persons of sedentary and bibacious habits are liable. [A literary swell,—I thought to myself, but I did not say it. I ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... the Grand. Here, have a cigar. Just a family affair, you know. First night; certain to be a swell crowd there; everything sold out in advance. Supper afterwards, private dining-room at the Annex—just ourselves; no guests, except only ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish

... this Monsieur de Repentigny, Chevalier?—tell me," asked the Princess, who was holding her little evening court in full circle on the balustraded terrace behind the chateau. She sat well out where there was plenty of room for the swell and spread of her vast garland-flounced skirts,—a woman of something less than forty, the incarnation of inane condescension. At her feet were her two pages—rosy little boys, dressed exactly like full-grown gentlemen. The ladies of her circle sat around her, each likewise ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... wondered: every flower of Hybla and Hymettus must have sent its ghost to swell the ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald

... have ever been to sea, in a calm, you'd know what a plaguy tiresome thing it is for a man that's in a hurry. An everlastin' flappin' of the sails, and a creakin' of the boombs, and an onsteady pitchin' of the ship, and folks lyin' about dozin' away their time, and the sea a-heavin' a long heavy swell, like the breathin' of the chist of some great monster asleep. A passenger wonders the sailors are so plagy easy about it, and he goes a-lookin' out east, and a-spyin' out west, to see if there's any chance of a breeze, and ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... occasionally," remarked Doctor Hillhouse, "are not given to idleness, waste of property and abuse and neglect of their families, as we find to be the case with common drunkards. They don't fill our prisons and almshouses. Their wives and children do not go to swell the great army of beggars, paupers and criminals. I fear, my friend, that you are looking through the wrong end of ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur

... 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 wherever they ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton

... had seen her mother do it so many times, it looked very easy. So in went suet and fruit; all sorts of spice, to be sure she got the right ones, and brandy instead of wine. But she forgot both sugar and salt, and tied it in the cloth so tightly that it had no room to swell, so it would come out as heavy as lead and as hard as a cannon-ball, if the bag did not burst and spoil it all. Happily unconscious of these mistakes, Tilly popped it into the pot, and proudly watched it bobbing about ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... ago, Ere heaving bellows learn'd to blow, While organs yet were mute, Timotheus, to his breathing flute And sounding lyre Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire. At last divine Cecilia came, Inventress of the vocal frame; The sweet enthusiast from her sacred store Enlarged the former narrow bounds, And added length to solemn sounds, With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... jealousy, as if to trace By track or wounded flower some rival there; And scarcely dared to look upon the face Of her he loved, lest it some tale might tell To make the only hope that soothed him vain: He hears her notes in numbers die and swell, But almost fears to listen to the strain Himself had taught her, lest some hated name Had been with that dear gentle air enwreathed. While he was far; she sighed—he nearer came, Oh, transport! Zophiel was the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... chariot, is but an imperfect type of those extraordinary minds which have thrown a spell on the fierce spirits of nations unaccustomed to control, and have compelled raging factions to obey their reins and swell their triumph. The enterprise, be it good or bad, is one which requires a truly great man. It demands courage, activity, energy, wisdom, firmness, conspicuous virtues, or vices so splendid and alluring as to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... introduction to a young human, and he found it slightly repulsive, but Deena, in her Madonna-like sweetness, made his heart swell. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... rode along the banks of a babbling forest stream, and spied the deer that came forth into the glade on the other side, as if they wanted, like the queen and her train, to listen to the song of the birds and the murmuring of the fountains. Catharine felt a nameless, blissful pleasure swell her bosom. She was to-day no more the queen, surrounded by perils and foes; no more the wife of an unloved, tyrannical husband; not the queen trammelled with the shackles of etiquette. She was a free, happy woman, who, in presageful, blissful trepidation, smiled at the future, and said ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... roared and flashed, fast clenched to each other in that devil's wedlock, under a cloud of smoke beneath the cloudless tropic sky; while all around, the dolphins gambolled, and the flying-fish shot on from swell to swell, and the rainbow-hued jellies opened and shut their cups of living crystal to the sun, as merrily as if man had never fallen, and hell had never ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... eclipses, since the whole earth shares in itself air, fire, and water, by which it is surrounded. Reasonably, in its depths are found vapors full of spirit, which they say being borne outward move the air; when they are restrained, they swell up and break violently forth. That the spirit is held within the earth they consider is caused by the sea, which sometimes obstructs the channels going outward, and sometimes by withdrawing, overturns parts of the earth. This ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... the one slight case on which his thoughts were bent, he felt, indeed, that there was little ground for hope, and little reason why it should not form an atom in the huge aggregate of distress and sorrow, and add one small and unimportant unit to swell the great amount. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... of some nestling village. Here and there is a pavilion by the water in which poet or sage sits contemplating the beauty round him. These happy and romantic scenes yield at last to promontory and reed-bed on the borders of a bay where a fisherman's boat is rocking on the swell. It is possible that a philosophic idea is intended to be suggested—the passage of the soul through the pleasant delights of earth to the contemplation of the infinite.'—Laurence Binyon, Painting in the Far East (1908), pp. 75-6. The section of the ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... with forests of sugar pines and giant sequoias, the mightiest of trees, in whose silent aisles one may wander all day long and see no sign of man. Dropped here and there rest turquoise lakes which mark the craters of dead volcanoes, or which swell the polished basins where vanished glaciers did their last work. Through mountain meadows run swift brooks, over-peopled with trout, while from the crags leap full-throated streams, to be half blown away in mist before they touch the ...
— California and the Californians • David Starr Jordan

... scared green. So I tucked her under m' arm, and we hit it up across the ocean. Went t' Germany, knowin' that it would feel homelike there, an' we took in all the swell baden, and chased up the Jungfrau—sa-a-ay, that's a classy little mountain, that Jungfrau. Mother, she had some swell time I guess. She never set down except for meals, and she wrote picture postals like mad. But sa-a-ay, girl, was I lonesome! Maybe that trip done me good. Anyway, I'm livin' ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... same scheme, but introduced it backward. Taking a No. 7 man into a corner, he told him impressively that he was a No. 9 and promoted him on the spot, and warned him to say nothing about it to anybody else. Then the man tried to swell to fit the office instead of growing to fit the work. But this fourth candidate made everybody see that doing No. 9 was more creditable than just being it. So everybody became interested in the work, and ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... of the continued calm, and wished that the breeze would rise and swell into a good strong wind, if it would only be fair for them; but they still lacked wind, and if it did arise, it was always a contrary one. Thus passed weeks, and when at length the wind became fair, and blew from the south-west, ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... spoke in hot haste while her cheeks glowed red. I saw the blue veins swell on her pure brow, and can never forget the image of her as she raised her tearful eyes to Heaven and pressing her hands on her panting bosom cried: "To go forth with him to want or death is as nothing! But never will I be led into shame, not ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... make an uncommonly swell young cit, Billy," he says, pleasantly. "Doesn't he, Mack?" he continues, appealing to his room-mate, who, lying flat on his back with his head towards the light and a pair of muscular legs in white trousers displayed on top of a pile of blankets, is striving to make out the vacancies ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... Lennox was in despair, while his heart continued to swell with grief and rage. It was unthinkable that the noblest young Onondaga of them all, one fit to be in his time the greatest of sachems, the very head and heart of the League, should be cut down by a mere skulker. And yet it had happened. Tayoga lay, still ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler

... interest- ing town, but I confess that I found in it less than I expected to admire. My expectations had doubtless been my own fault; there is no particular reason why Le Mans should fascinate. It stands upon a hill, indeed, - a much better hill than the gentle swell of Bourges. This hill, however, is not steep in all direc- tions; from the railway, as I arrived, it was not even perceptible. Since I am making comparisons, I may remark that, on the other hand, the Boule d'Or at Le Mans is an appreciably better inn than the Boule d'Or at Bourges. It looks ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... Pile against th' Improbable, And with a Full Hand thought to make it swell; And this was all the Profit that I reaped: A Full of Kings is Heaven—and ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)

... the 3d September, they got out from the Straits of Magellan into the South Sea, with a fair wind, and continued their voyage to the W.N.W. with the wind at N.E. till the 7th, having all that time fine weather. This day, however, the sea began to swell and rise so high, that the vice-admiral had to lie to and hoist his boat on board, which was likewise done by the Fidelity. While de Weert was sailing directly in the wake of the admiral, who led the fleet, an accident happened on board the yacht, which had the wind of the Fidelity, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... wear it though,' said Caleb, watching the effect of what he said, upon her brightening face; 'upon my word! When I hear the boys and people say behind me, "Hal-loa! Here's a swell!" I don't know which way to look. And when the beggar wouldn't go away last night; and when I said I was a very common man, said "No, your Honour! Bless your Honour, don't say that!" I was quite ashamed. I really felt as if I hadn't a right to ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... you would, of course, be indicted for perjury, and would go to prison. As it is, if you will tell all your story to one of your swell friends, I think it very likely that you may be pulled through. I should say that Mr. Eustace, or your cousin Greystock, would ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... soft on Carbery's hundred isles— The summer sun is gleaming still through Gabriel's rough defiles— Old Inisherkin's crumbled fane looks like a moulting bird; And in a calm and sleepy swell the ocean tide is heard; The hookers lie upon the beach; the children cease their play; The gossips leave the little inn; the households kneel to pray— And full of love and peace and rest—its daily labour o'er— Upon that cosy creek there ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... answered. 'Twas fitted up for the job, or I should not have had to force the door. If 'twere not got ready for a job of this kind, why a half-inch shutter inside the canvas blinds, and the bolt outside, 'swell as a lock? Mark that door! D'you ever see the like of that on an honest carriage? Why, 'tis naught ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... what power you have over me! I swore then that no human being should ever hear of the insult put upon me by that haughty Prince's daughter, and yet I am confessing it to you now. Pity me not, say nothing, nothing at all, for each word but aggravates my pain and makes my heart swell with indignation and grief. Oh, I loved her, trusted her, I dreamed of a proud and brilliant future, which I should owe to her! And she played her part in such masterly style, her countenance wearing a look of such innocence and candor! ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... the porridge stick on the edge of the kettle. Instantly the kettle began to swell. Larger, and larger, and larger it grew. Greedy Fawn was so frightened he did not know ...
— Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children • Mabel Powers

... 16, 1771, some two thousand Regulators were precipitated by Husband into the Battle of Alamance, which took place in a district settled largely by a rough and ignorant type of Germans, many of whom Husband had lured to swell his mob. Opposed to him, were eleven hundred of Governor Tryon's troops, officered by such patriots as Griffith Rutherford, Hugh Waddell, and Francis Nash. During an hour's engagement about twenty Regulators were killed, while ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... been Madame de Pompadour, who said, "After me the deluge;" but whichever it was, very much that thought was in Mr. Buchanan's mind in 1861 as the time for his exit from the White House approached. At the North there had been a political ground-swell; at the South, secession, half accomplished by the Gulf States, yawned in the Border States. Curiously enough, very few believed that ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson



Words linked to "Swell" :   tumefy, coxcomb, ground swell, blow up, beau, adult male, dude, grow, swell up, corking, smashing, keen, blister, Brummell, fashion plate, great, vesicate, well up, elevation, bloat, develop, rise, colloquialism, not bad, clotheshorse, nifty, tumesce, belly out, cockscomb, fop, bulge, moving ridge, slap-up, macaroni, dandy, good



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