welter

/ˈwɛltə/US/ˈwɛltɚ/

welter noun: a general confusion or muddle, especially of a large number of items.

Noun

welter (plural welters)

A general confusion or muddle, especially of a large number of items.
- He would, except for his guests, have fled outdoors and walked off the intoxication of food, but in the haze which filled the room they sat forever, talking, talking, while he agonized, “Darn fool to be eating all this—not ’nother mouthful,” and discovered that he was again tasting the sickly...1922, Sinclair Lewis, chapter IX, in Babbitt, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, →OCLC
- And in truth, his mind was such a welter of opposites—of the night and the blazing candles, of the shabby poet and the great Queen, of silent fields and the clatter of serving men—that he could see nothing; or only a hand.1928, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1, in Orlando: A Biography, London: The Hogarth Press, →OCLC; republished as Orlando: A Biography (eBook no. 0200331h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, July...
Synonyms:

bouillabaisse, bric-a-brac, catch-all, clamjamfrey, cocktail, rummage, salad, anthology, gallery, gatherum
A tossing or rolling about.

Verb (1)

welter (third-person singular simple present welters, present participle weltering, simple past and past participle weltered)

(intransitive) To roll around; to wallow.
- […] were it not for shame,
  Shame and dishonour to a soldier’s name,
  Upon my weapon’s point here shouldst thou fall,
  And welter in thy gore.1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC, [Act...
- I had no horse, and the deep and wheeling stream of the river, rendered turbid by the late tumult of which its channel had been the scene, and seeming yet more so under the doubtful influence of an imperfect moonlight, had no inviting influence for a pedestrian by no means accustomed to wade...1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter [VI], in Rob Roy. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst...
(figuratively, intransitive) To revel, luxuriate.
- When we welter in pleasures and idleness, then we eat and drink with drunkards.1537, Hugh Latimer, Sermon III, Preached to the Convocation of the Clergy, in The Sermons of Hugh Latimer, London: J. Scott, 1783, Volume I, p. 38
- These wisards weltre in welths waues,
  pampred in pleasures deepe,
  They han fatte kernes, and leany knaues,1579, Edmund Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender, “Ivlye” [“July”], lines 197-198, in Ernest de Sélincourt (ed.) Spenser’s Minor Poems, Oxford: Clarendon Press,1910, p. 73
(intransitive, billows) To rise and fall, to tumble over, to roll.
- Such Musick (as ’tis said)
  Before was never made,
  But when of old the sons of morning sung,
  While the Creator Great
  His constellations set,
  And the well-ballanc’t world on hinges hung,
  And cast the dark foundations deep,
  And bid the weltring waves their oozy channel keep.1645, John Milton, “On the Morning of Christ's Nativity”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, London: Humphrey Moseley, Stanza XII, pp. 6-7
- There, waves that, hardly weltering, die away,
  Tip their smooth ridges with a softer ray;1793, William Wordsworth, “An Evening Walk. Addressed to a Young Lady”, in The Poetical Works of Wordsworth, New York: John W. Lovell, published 1800, page 17

Adjective

welter

Heavyweight. (of horsemen)
- a welter race

Verb (2)

welter (third-person singular simple present welters, present participle weltering, simple past and past participle weltered)

To wither; to wilt.
- But look now into the weltered hearts and blighted memories of those whom we have gathered from out of the thousands of the lost and wretched.1860, Isaac Taylor, Ultimate Civilization, and Other Essays, London: Bell & Dalday, “Ultimate Civilization,” Part I, IV, p. 40

Proper noun capitalized: Welter

Welter (plural Welters)

A surname.

welter meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

welter in Tamil

உருண்டு புரளுதல், குளறுபடி, பெருங்குழப்பம், அமளி, அலை போல உருண்டு புரள், நனைந்து தோய்

welter in Malayalam

കിടന്നുരുളുക, തിരയിൽ പൊങ്ങിമറിയുക, ശോഷിക്കുക

welter in Kannada

ಗೊಂದಲ, ತಬ್ಬಿಬ್ಬು, ಅಸ್ತವ್ಯಸ್ತ ಸ್ಥಿತಿ, ಕಲಸು ಮೇಲೋಗರ, ಅವ್ಯವಸ್ಥೆ

Synonyms of welter

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of welter

Forms of welter

Noun
plural	welters
Verb
third-person singular present	welters
present participle	weltering
past participle	weltered
past	weltered
Proper noun
plural	Welters

Origin of welter

From Middle English welteren, equivalent to welt + -er (frequentative suffix). Cognates include German Low German weltern (“to wallow; roll”), Old Norse velta (Danish vælte), German wälzen, Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌻𐍄𐌾𐌰𐌽 (waltjan). Akin to wallow and Latin volvō.

Compare wilt (intransitive verb).

Words formed from welter

Words that rhyme with welter

Questions about welter

What does welter mean?: Welter means a general confusion or muddle, especially of a large number of items.
What is welter in Tamil?: Welter in Tamil is உருண்டு புரளுதல், குளறுபடி, பெருங்குழப்பம். See Welter meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is welter?: Welter can be a noun, a verb, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce welter?: Welter is pronounced /ˈwɛltə/ (UK).
What is the plural of welter?: The plural of welter is welters.

Words near welter in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: welter (page history and authors); Welter (page history and authors); welter (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); welter (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); welter (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); welter (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-welter.wav.

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