Dictionary

sweal en · VERB

Pronunciation

• /swiːl/ (UK)
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From Middle English swelen, from Old English swelan (“to burn, be burnt up, inflame”) (compare Old English swǣlan (“to burn”)), from Proto-West Germanic *swelan, from Proto-Germanic *swelaną (“to smoulder, burn slowly, create a burningly cold sensation”), from Proto-Indo-European *swel- (“to shine, warm, smoulder, burn”). Cognate with Dutch zwelen (“to smoulder”), Low German swelen (“to smoulder”), German schwelen (“to smoulder”), Icelandic svala (“to cool”). Related to swelter.

Meanings

1. (intransitive) To burn slowly.
2. (intransitive) To melt and run down, as the tallow of a candle; waste away without feeding the flame.
   • [M]ind ye dinna let the candle sweal as ye gang alang the wainscot parlour, and haud a' the house scouring to get out the grease again. 1816, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter V, in Tales of My Landlord, […], volume II (Old Mortality), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for William Blackwood, […]; London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 104:
3. (transitive) To singe; scorch; dress (as a hog) with burning or singeing.
4. (dialectal, transitive) To consume with fire; burn.
5. (dialectal, transitive) To make disappear; cause to waste away; diminish; reduce.
   • "He thinks it's only a tumour!" cried Annie to her mother. "And he can sweal it away." 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Baxter Dawes”, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC, part II, page 377:

Forms

Deriveds

forsweal