Word.ws English Dictionary

swelling the ranks

swelling the ranks is the present participle and gerund of swell the ranks.

Meaning of swell the ranks

Verb

swell the ranks (third-person singular simple present swells the ranks, present participle swelling the ranks, simple past swelled the ranks, past participle swelled the ranks or swollen the ranks)

  1. To add significant numbers of members (to a group).
    • All through the Empire the unskilled labourer is the one who feels the stress of hard times, when they do come, the most, and it is this class that goes very largely to swell the ranks of the unemployed.1913, Western Australia. Education Department ·, Report, page cxxviii

Questions about swelling the ranks

What is swelling the ranks the present participle and gerund of?
Swelling the ranks is the present participle and gerund of swell the ranks.

Words near swelling the ranks in the dictionary

  1. swelling
  2. swelling soil
  3. swelling soils
  4. swelling tape
  5. swelling tapes
  6. swelling the ranks
  7. swelling up
  8. swellingly
  9. swellings
  10. swellish
  11. swellishness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swelling the ranks (page history and authors); swell the ranks (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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