Word.ws English Dictionary

well up

well up verb: to gradually or steadily flow upwards or outwards so as to begin to fill or overflow something.

Verb

well up (third-person singular simple present wells up, present participle welling up, simple past and past participle welled up)

  1. (intransitive) To gradually or steadily flow upwards or outwards so as to begin to fill or overflow something.
    • Oil was welling up out of the borehole.
    • As soon as I heard news of his death, tears started to well up in my eyes.
  2. (broadly, figuratively) To accumulate within one, to the point of overwhelming one.
    • Emotion welled up inside me.
    • A barely audible groan welled up in the Captain's throat as the grinning Freedom Fighter circled around behind the helpless American Soldier. The groan sputtered into a strangled, "No… no… don't.... " as Randall felt the juicy tip of the man's tumescent cock jab against his hair-ringed, virgin...1991, Etienne, “In Enemy Hands”, in Drummer, number 151, page 32

Adjective

well up (comparative more well up, superlative most well up)

  1. (colloquial) Well versed; well acquainted (in or on).
    • How well up are you on algebra?

well up meaning in Tamil and Urdu

well up in Tamil

to well up
மல்கு malku

well up in Urdu

جوش پر آنا

Forms of well up

Verb
third-person singular presentwells up
present participlewelling up
past participlewelled up
pastwelled up
Adjective
comparativemore well up
superlativemost well up

Questions about well up

What does well up mean?
Well up means to gradually or steadily flow upwards or outwards so as to begin to fill or overflow something.
What is well up in Tamil?
Well up in Tamil is மல்கு (malku). See Well up meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is well up?
Well up can be a verb or an adjective.
What is the past tense of well up?
The past tense of well up is welled up.

Words near well up in the dictionary

  1. well rooms
  2. well said
  3. well sinker
  4. well sinkers
  5. well spotted
  6. well up
  7. well versed
  8. well wagon
  9. well wagons
  10. well will
  11. well, duh

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: well up (page history and authors); மல்கு (Tamil) (page history and authors); well up (Urdu 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.

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