SWELTER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does swelter mean? 

• SWELTER (verb)
  The verb SWELTER has 2 senses:

1. be uncomfortably hot

2. suffer from intense heat

  Familiarity information: SWELTER used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SWELTER (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they swelter    ... he / she / it swelters   
Past simple: sweltered   
Past participle: sweltered   
-ing form: sweltering   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Be uncomfortably hot

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Hypernyms (to "swelter" is one way to...):

suffer (feel unwell or uncomfortable)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Sense 2

Meaning:

Suffer from intense heat

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Context example:

we were sweltering at the beach

Hypernyms (to "swelter" is one way to...):

perspire; sudate; sweat (excrete perspiration through the pores in the skin)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

 Context examples 

The heat was sweltering, and the men grumbled fiercely over their work.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

In rapid succession we passed through the fringe of fashionable London, hotel London, theatrical London, literary London, commercial London, and, finally, maritime London, till we came to a riverside city of a hundred thousand souls, where the tenement houses swelter and reek with the outcasts of Europe.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)