Word.ws English Dictionary

swelter

UK/ˈswɛl.tə//ˈswɛl.tɚ/

swelter verb: to suffer terribly from intense heat.

Verb

swelter (third-person singular simple present swelters, present participle sweltering, simple past and past participle sweltered)

  1. (intransitive) To suffer terribly from intense heat.
    Synonyms:
    burn up, steam, stew
  2. (intransitive) To perspire greatly from heat.
  3. (transitive) To cause to faint, to overpower, as with heat.
    • It was so rare a piece of fun
      To see the swelter'd cattle run1796, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Fire, Famine, and Slaughter
    Synonyms:
    sweb, swelt

Noun

swelter (plural swelters)

  1. Intense heat.
    • The summer swelter did not relent until late in September, most years.

swelter meaning in Malayalam and Kannada

swelter in Malayalam

അതിയായി വിയർക്കുക

swelter in Kannada

ಸೆಕೆಯಿಂದ ಬಳಲು, ಸೆಕೆಯಿಂದ ಬೆವರು, ಬೆವರು, ಬೇಗೆಯಿಂದ ಬಳಲು

Synonyms of swelter

All synonyms of swelter

Forms of swelter

Verb
third-person singular presentswelters
present participlesweltering
past participlesweltered
pastsweltered
alternative form (obsolete)sulter
Noun
pluralswelters

Origin of swelter

From Middle English swelteren, frequentative form of Middle English swelten (“to die; faint”), from Old English sweltan (“to die”), from Proto-West Germanic *sweltan, from Proto-Germanic *sweltaną (“to die”), from Proto-Indo-European *swel- (“to smolder; burn”), equivalent to swelt + -er (frequentative suffix).

Words formed from swelter

Words that rhyme with swelter

Questions about swelter

What does swelter mean?
Swelter means to suffer terribly from intense heat.
What is swelter in Malayalam?
Swelter in Malayalam is അതിയായി വിയർക്കുക. See Swelter meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is swelter?
Swelter can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce swelter?
Swelter is pronounced /ˈswɛl.tə/ (UK).
What is the past tense of swelter?
The past tense of swelter is sweltered.

Words near swelter in the dictionary

  1. swelltoads
  2. swelly
  3. swelp
  4. swelt
  5. swelted
  6. swelter
  7. sweltered
  8. sweltering
  9. swelteringly
  10. swelterings
  11. swelters

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swelter (page history and authors); swelter (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); swelter (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-swelter.ogg, en-au-swelter.ogg.

Cite this entry: “swelter.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/swelter. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.