Word.ws English Dictionary

swoll

swoll is the alternative spelling of swole.

Meaning of swole

Adjective

swole (comparative swoler, superlative swolest)

  1. (dialectal, chiefly African-American Vernacular) Swollen, enlarged.
    • Well, we git him into the cook-car between us, and git him stretched out on the table and some water on him. He's kind of a sorry sight what with the black eye and swole lip he got earlier in the evenin' and now a lump on his head the size of a hen's egg where the potato masher's hit him.1929 May, Harry G. Huse, “The One Big Union”, in The Frontier: A Magazine of the Northwest, volume IX, number 4, page 338
    1. (dialectal, slang, chiefly African-American Vernacular) Of a person: having large, well-developed muscles; muscular.
      • I ain't swole enough, brah. I gotta work out in the gym more.
    2. (dialectal, slang, chiefly African-American Vernacular) Of a person: erect; having an erection of the penis; sexually aroused, hard.
      • her titties got me swole.
  2. (figuratively) Full (of something); bursting with.
    • Sourdough went on to explain the occasion for the festivity. "The Popplewells are so swole with pride now they got the upstairs house finished that they got to give a house-warmin'."1925, Dorothy Scarborough, The Wind, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, page 119
  3. (figuratively) Extremely proud or arrogant.
    • Strangers weren't sure she was drunk, but I knew. Granny got braggish when drunk. She got swole up about herself. When she took to bragging on her thoughts and notions it was time to jump from the station wagon and walk or brace for a crash.2001, Daniel Woodrell, The Death of Sweet Mister: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Marian Wood Books, →ISBN, page 146
  4. (figuratively, usually) Upset; experiencing strong negative emotion.
    • Every once in a while, maybe twice a year, Bessie gets all galled under the britchin' about something [...] Usually over some triflin' little thing that don't amount to a hill of beans, like I won't wash my feet or something, but she gets all swole up like a snakebit pup and says she's leavin' me...1956, Charles Williams, chapter 4, in The Diamond Bikini (Gold Medal Books; s607), Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, →OCLC; republished [New York, N.Y.]: Open Road Media, 2012, →ISBN

Proper noun capitalized: Swoll

Swoll (plural Swolls)

  1. A surname.

Forms of swoll

pluralSwolls

Origin of swoll

From Middle English swall, swal, from Old English sweall, from Proto-Germanic *swall, first and third person singular preterit of Proto-Germanic *swellaną (“to swell”).

Questions about swoll

What does swoll mean?
Swoll means a surname.
What is swoll the alternative spelling of?
Swoll is the alternative spelling of swole.
What part of speech is swoll?
Swoll is a proper noun.

Words near swoll in the dictionary

  1. swolemate
  2. swolemates
  3. swoleness
  4. swoler
  5. swolest
  6. swoll
  7. swollen
  8. swollen assets theories
  9. swollen assets theory
  10. swollen the ranks
  11. swollen up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swoll (page history and authors); Swoll (page history and authors); swole (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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Cite this entry: “swoll.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/swoll. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.