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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
swelling
noun
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ My doctor examined the swelling on my back.
▪ Nothing seemed to stop the swelling.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ He developed stress induced swelling of both knees and the right elbow.
▪ He had felt them - round swelling lumps the size of gold coins.
▪ They are bristly with a slight swelling towards the tip, before the final tapering-off.
▪ They looked down from the bridge and saw the arms washed upwards, the plague swellings plainly visible.
▪ This condition normally gives rise to severe swelling, known as oedema, in various parts of the body.
▪ Though the swelling had gone from her temple and the bruise was fading, she still appeared wan.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Swelling

Swell \Swell\, v. i. [imp. Swelled; p. p. Swelled or Swollen; p. pr. & vb. n. Swelling.] [AS. swellan; akin to D. zwellen, OS. & OHG. swellan, G. schwellen, Icel. svella, Sw. sv["a]lla.]

  1. To grow larger; to dilate or extend the exterior surface or dimensions, by matter added within, or by expansion of the inclosed substance; as, the legs swell in dropsy; a bruised part swells; a bladder swells by inflation.

  2. To increase in size or extent by any addition; to increase in volume or force; as, a river swells, and overflows its banks; sounds swell or diminish.

  3. To rise or be driven into waves or billows; to heave; as, in tempest, the ocean swells into waves.

  4. To be puffed up or bloated; as, to swell with pride.

    You swell at the tartan, as the bull is said to do at scarlet.
    --Sir W. Scott.

  5. To be inflated; to belly; as, the sails swell.

  6. To be turgid, bombastic, or extravagant; as, swelling words; a swelling style.

  7. To protuberate; to bulge out; as, a cask swells in the middle.

  8. To be elated; to rise arrogantly.

    Your equal mind yet swells not into state.
    --Dryden.

  9. To grow upon the view; to become larger; to expand. ``Monarchs to behold the swelling scene!''
    --Shak.

  10. To become larger in amount; as, many little debts added, swell to a great amount.

  11. To act in a pompous, ostentatious, or arrogant manner; to strut; to look big.

    Here he comes, swelling like a turkey cock.
    --Shak.

Swelling

Swelling \Swell"ing\, n.

  1. The act of that which swells; as, the swelling of rivers in spring; the swelling of the breast with pride.

    Rise to the swelling of the voiceless sea.
    --Coleridge.

  2. A protuberance; a prominence; especially (Med.), an unnatural prominence or protuberance; as, a scrofulous swelling.

    The superficies of such plates are not even, but have many cavities and swellings.
    --Sir I. Newton.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
swelling

"tumor, morbid enlargement," Old English; verbal noun from swell (v.).

Wiktionary
swelling

n. The state of being swollen. vb. (present participle of swell English)

WordNet
swelling
  1. adj. becoming puffy as from internal bleeding or accumulation of other fluids; "put ice on the swelling ankle"

  2. n. abnormal protuberance or localized enlargement [syn: puffiness, lump]

  3. the swelling of certain substances when they are heated (often accompanied by release of water) [syn: intumescence, intumescency]

Wikipedia
Swelling

Swelling may refer to:

  • Swelling (medical), a transient abnormal enlargement of a body part or area not caused by a tumor
  • Die swell, the increase in cross-sectional area of an extrudate after exiting a die
  • Swelling (polymer science), the increase of volume of material due to absorption of a solvent, common for polymers
  • Neutron-induced swelling, the increasing of volume and decreasing of density of materials subjected to intense neutron radiation
Swelling (medical)

In medical parlance, swelling, turgescence or tumefaction is a transient abnormal enlargement of a body part or area not caused by proliferation of cells. It is caused by accumulation of fluid in tissues. It can occur throughout the body (generalized), or a specific part or organ can be affected (localized). Swelling is usually not dangerous and is a common reaction to a inflammation or a bruise.

Swelling is considered one of the five characteristics of inflammation; along with pain, heat, redness, and loss of function.

In a general sense, the suffix "-megaly" is used to indicate a growth, as in hepatomegaly, acromegaly, and splenomegaly.

A body part may swell in response to injury, infection, or disease. Swelling, especially of the ankle, can occur if the body is not circulating fluid well. If water retention progresses to a symptomatic extent, swelling results.

Generalized swelling, or massive edema (also called anasarca), is a common sign in severely ill people. Although slight edema may be difficult to detect to the untrained eye, especially in an overweight person, massive edema is very obvious.

Usage examples of "swelling".

And anthrax could be distinguished by the characteristic X ray showing a swelling of the lymph nodes between the lungs, in the part of the chest known as the mediastinum.

Her ballet slippers had grown too tight for her swelling feet, and at long last Jenny Angustri appeared to have the perfect high instep that every ballerina ought to have.

She gazed at him with new approval when she stopped, the lush, responsive tissues of her dark face turning darker still and blooming somnolently with a swelling and beautifying infusion of blood.

His eyes, sapphire blue beneath a square-cut black mane, were on the olive-skinned woman across the small room, who was adjusting the gilded brass breastplates that displayed rather than concealed her swelling bilobate chest.

The stone was the statue of a woman, a Venus grosser than Mrs Blatter, her belly swelling with children, tits like mountains, cunt a valley that began at her navel and gaped to the world.

The Sacred Name blossomed like a rose within me, swelling to fill every part, until there was no room left for any trace of fear.

Mockdirad lunged to their feet, shoulders bristling, bare chests swelling.

Shewing their strong members, their swelling muskels standing out, offering to the sight and eyes of tbe behoulder, the dutie of theyr bones, and the hollownesse in the places, where theyr strong sinewes be strayned.

It looked good: no swelling, no necrosis, no gap between the baboon and the microchip.

She pitched on a little Sicilian pastorale that the herdsmen play on their pipes coming down from the hills, softly, from very far, rising, rising, swelling to full cadence, and failing, failing away again to nothing.

Some distance behind him stumbled Marit, clutching his shoulder, and Perd, with a swelling jaw.

America, and of the wilderness, and it haunted them like legends, and pierced them like a sword, and filled them with a wild and swelling prescience of joy that was like sorrow and delight.

Generalised fevers, for example, were caused by putrefying humours throughout the body, producing heat, whereas localised illnesses stemmed from toxic humours in individual organs, leading to swelling, or hardening, or pain.

The skin passed naturally over the chest from one side to another, but was raised at one part of the groove by a pulsatile swelling which occupied the position of the right auricle.

Between the clavicles another pulsatile swelling was easily felt but hardly seen, which was doubtless the arch of the aorta, as by putting the fingers on it one could feel a double shock, synchronous with distention and recoil of a vessel or opening and closing of the semilunar valves.