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noun
Swell  n.  
1.
The act of swelling.
2.
Gradual increase. Specifically:
(a)
Increase or augmentation in bulk; protuberance.
(b)
Increase in height; elevation; rise. "Little River affords navigation during a swell to within three miles of the Miami."
(c)
Increase of force, intensity, or volume of sound. "Music arose with its voluptuous swell."
(d)
Increase of power in style, or of rhetorical force. "The swell and subsidence of his periods."
3.
A gradual ascent, or rounded elevation, of land; as, an extensive plain abounding with little swells.
4.
A wave, or billow; especially, a succession of large waves; the roll of the sea after a storm; as, a heavy swell sets into the harbor. "The swell Of the long waves that roll in yonder bay." "The gigantic swells and billows of the snow."
5.
(Mus.) A gradual increase and decrease of the volume of sound; the crescendo and diminuendo combined; generally indicated by the sign.
6.
A showy, dashing person; a dandy. (Slang)
Ground swell. See under Ground.
Organ swell (Mus.), a certain number of pipes inclosed in a box, the uncovering of which by means of a pedal produces increased sound.
Swell shark (Zool.), a small shark (Scyllium ventricosum) of the west coast of North America, which takes in air when caught, and swells up like a swellfish.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Swell" Quotes from Famous Books



... contempt and laughter; but if he examine what are the appearances that thus powerfully excite his risibility, he will find among them neither poverty nor disease, nor any involuntary or painful defect. The disposition to derision and insult, is awakened by the softness of foppery, the swell of insolence, the liveliness of levity, or the solemnity of grandeur; by the sprightly trip, the stately stalk, the formal strut, and the lofty mien; by gestures intended to catch the eye, and by looks elaborately formed as evidences ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... slap in the face. He watched keenly to note the result, and saw the heavy figure draw itself up to its full height, seeming at the same time to swell out. The broad face with its sloping, flattish forehead betrayed little ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... from the Stard Side 4 Lodges above 1 below and Confined the river in a narrow channel of about 45 yards this continued for about 1/4 of a mile & widened to about 200 yards, in those narrows the water was agitated in a most Shocking manner boils Swell & whorl pools, we passed with great risque It being impossible to make a portage of the Canoes, about 2 miles lower passed a verry Bad place between 2 rocks one large & in the middle of the river here our Canoes took in Some water, I put all the ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... curses that leaped from others. Sandy shrunk back appalled before the hell-blast that breathed upon him, and he felt his wife clutch him closer. Only two of those that were there stood unmoved; they were the two men who acted as Sandy's escort. As the tide of madness seemed to swell higher, they calmly stepped forward and crossed their staves before their charge. There was something in their action full of significance for those who knew. Instantly the crowd melted away like snow under a blast of ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... name because I don't know that feller at all," Noblestone protested. "But Perlmutter is a fine business man, Mr. Zudrowsky, and he's a swell dresser, too." ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass

... the birds came but seldom; and at last the lilac-bush said, "I will give up: I am not going to bud or bloom or do a single thing for Easter this year! I don't care if my trunk does n't grow, nor my buds swell, nor my leaves grow larger! If Hester wants her room shaded, she can pull the curtain down; and the lame girl can"—do without, it was going to say, but it did n't dare—oh, it did n't dare to think of the poor little ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... work performed that day in the iron foundry. Every soul belonging to it, from the superintendent down to the errand-boy, came forth to swell our train; and we walked up the Iser, attended as never Highland chief was, even in the good old times of heritable jurisdictions. Nor was this all. A religious procession, that is to say, a numerous body of peasants ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig

... of the Indians made by these people, brought us nearer and nearer to them and made them seem more and more dangerous. Finally one morning as we reached the top of a gentle swell in the plain, a large band of them suddenly appeared in full view, camped at the side of our road about half a mile ahead of us. From all appearances there were five or six hundred or more of them. They belonged to the western branch of the Sioux tribe. We stopped a ...
— A Gold Hunter's Experience • Chalkley J. Hambleton

... senour aged aboute fifty years saith that hee being at ye house of Danell Wescot in ye euning I did see his maid Cattern Branch in her fit that shee did swell in her brests (as shee lay on her bed) and they rise as lik bladers and suddenly pased in to her bely, and in a short time returned to her brest and in a short time her breasts fell and a great ratling in her throat as if shee would haue been ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor

... the ship not otherwise engaged, we walked down the dusty streets toward the cockpits, where in honour of the day there was to be a contest of unusual interest. At every corner came new recruits to swell the ranks of our followers. "Merry Christmas," cried everyone in Spanish or Visayan, and "Merry Christmas" we responded, though June skies bending down toward tropical palms and soft winds just rustling the tops of tall bamboos, so that they cast flickering fern-like shadows over ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel

... the Dark rebel in vain, 85 Slaves by their own compulsion! In mad game They burst their manacles and wear the name Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain! O Liberty! with profitless endeavour Have I pursued thee, many a weary hour; 90 But thou nor swell'st the victor's strain, nor ever Didst breathe thy soul ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... torture under a cloak of tender new grass, vividly green as a freshly watered, well-kept lawn. Meadow larks hopped here and there, searching long for a sheltered nesting place, and missing the weeds where they were wont to sway and swell their yellow breasts and sing at the sun. They sang just as happily, however, on their short, low flights over the levels, or sitting upon gray, half-buried boulders upon some barren hilltop. Spring had come with lavish warmth. The smoke of burning ranges, the ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower

... "Squire" came into vogue again, but only for a season; for, as his wealth and popularity augmented, that title, by imperceptible stages, grew up into "Judge;" indeed' it bade fair to swell into "General" bye and bye. All strangers of consequence who visited the village gravitated to the Hawkins Mansion and became guests of ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... it blew a soft, quiet wind, but for hours next day 'twas all dead calm, a light swell, the sunlight coming off the water hot as steam, and the yacht slewing round and round as if, like the rest of us, she was trying to find out where the wind meant to come from next. I never saw any man fret more over a calm than ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant

... which they had met some three days since, had entirely abated; the ship was laid to while the slight damage sustained was undergoing repair, and rocked heavily under the gray sky on the long, sullen swell and roll of the grayer waters. Mr. Raleigh had just come upon deck at dawn, where he found every one in unaccountable commotion. "Ship to leeward in distress," was all the answer his inquiries could obtain, while the man on the topmast was making his observations. Mr. Raleigh could see ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... serving. White folks was still used to having colored wait on them and they liked my style. Mr. Jones was so kind. He told his friends about how I could plan big dinners and banquets; then cook and serve them. Right soon I was handling most of the big swell weddings for the society folks. Child, if I could call off the names of the folks I have served, it would be mighty near everybody of any consequence in Little Rock for more than 55 years. Yes ma'am, I'm now being called on to serve the grandchildren ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... Sombre sky and sombre sea. Large cauliflower-headed masses of dazzling cumulus tower in front of a background of lavender-coloured satin. There are clouds of every shape and size. The sails idly flap as the sea rises and falls with a heavy regular but windless swell. Creaking yards and groaning rudder seem to lament that they cannot get on. The horizon is hard and black, save when blent softly into the sky upon one quarter or another by a rapidly approaching squall. A puff of wind—"Square the yards!"—the ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler

... myrtle-leaves—myrtle-leaves for the bride—for the maiden-widow—hi! hi! hi! Myrtle-leaves plucked at the hour of sunset, but these will not be blossoms until midnight! Do you hear the whisperings of the night-winds? the longing moaning swell of the sea? Row away bravely, my bold oarsman, row away bravely!" Antonio's heart was deeply thrilled with awe as he listened to the old crone's wonderful words, which she mumbled to herself in a very peculiar and extraordinary way, mingled with an ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... deep pool about ten feet in diameter. Flowing out of this pool, it ran about twelve feet further through a narrow gorge, where it dropped over another ledge. Now, all that we had to do was to shut up the outlet of the narrow gorge with a strong dam, and so cause the pool to swell and rise into a small but very ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne

... such a person as Sir Isaac in the world. Lady Beach-Mandarin's mother and the Swiss governess and the tall but retarded daughter, Phyllis, completed the party. The reception was lively and cheering; Lady Beach-Mandarin enfolded her guests in generosities and kept them all astir like a sea-swell under a squadron, and she introduced Lady Harman to Miss Alimony by public proclamation right across the room because there were two lavish tables of bric-a-brac, a marble bust of old Beach-Mandarin and most of ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... staring at the swell which was steadily growing heavier. Both men had covered themselves with rugs, after dutifully bundling up Miss Julia. As I walked back and forth on the deck, I was struck by their various degrees of in-expressiveness. Opaque brown eyes, almond-shaped ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... was gone down, so that men could scarce see to slay each other. The Wanderer stood his chariot on the bank, watching the battle, for he was weary, and had little mind to swell the slaughter of the people of his ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang

... he resumed in short, gasping tones, "that it would be well for us, just as the evening was coming on, to go over a swell and ride right into a forest of big oaks and maples, with the finest little creek that you ever saw running through the middle of it. It would be pleasant and shady there. Leaves would be lying about, the water would be cold, and maybe we'd see elk coming ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... way, as by becoming an inveterate gambler and permanently neglecting his work, or by developing the opium vice to great excess, would be formally cast out, his name being struck off the ancestral register. Men of this stamp generally sink lower and lower, until they swell the ranks of professional beggars, to die perhaps in a ditch; but such cases are ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles

... anything unreasonable, or against a fellow's honour—Hold your tongue, Waters; by Jove! I know my friends. I know you would never have been one of them but for Jack Wentworth. He's not the common sort, I can tell you. He's the greatest swell going, by Jove!" cried Jack's admiring follower, "and through thick and thin he's stood by me. I aint going to forsake him now—that is, if he don't want anything that goes against a fellow's honour," said the repentant prodigal, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... second Dr. Arnold could be found! Were there but ten such men amongst the hierarchs of the Church of England she might bid defiance to all the scarlet hats and stockings in the Pope's gift. Her sanctuaries would be purified, her rites reformed, her withered veins would swell again with vital sap; but it ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... morning the sails hung motionless and shrivelled along the masts. Although not a breath reached us, and the surface of the ocean was unruffled, the schooner was rocked from side to side by the long oscillations of the swell coming from the west. ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... a succession of wet weather the produce has remained on the barbacues for several weeks, without the slightest advance in curing; and, unless it be frequently turned while in this wet state, it is sure to germinate; the berries first swell, then a thin white spire issues from the seam, and on opening the berry the young leaves will be actually seen formed inside, so rapid is the ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... landed proprietors, and the eager competition of steamship companies drumming for steerage passengers in all parts of Europe—all these cooeperated with the growing facility and cheapness of steam transportation to swell the current of migration. The discovery of gold in California quickened ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... Doctor Olivarez, the medico de camara, a very good lad, and lives on chicken broth and dried plums. But on the tenth day comes on numbness of the left side, acute pains in the head, and then gradually shivering, high fever, erysipelas. His head and neck swell to an enormous size; then comes raging delirium, then stupefaction, and Don Carlos lies as ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... left them. Mr Greatheart was very stout and he had a red nose; he wore a capacious waistcoat, and a shirt with a huge frill down the middle of the front. Hopeful was up to as much mischief as I could give him; he wore the costume of a young swell of the period, and had a cigar in his mouth which was continually ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... slowly dropping below the horizon. The sea was tranquil and the breeze steady. The ship was clothed in canvas which bellied to drive her eastward with a frothing wake. Safely she left the outer bar astern and wallowed in the ocean swell. ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... applied to several: but the wanderer rested with the pine, because her voice was constant, soft, and lowly deep; and he welcomed in her a wild memorial of the ocean-cave, his birthplace. There is a fine description of a storm in 'Coningsby,' where a sylvan language is made to swell the diapason of the tempest. 'The wind howled, the branches of the forest stirred, and sent forth sounds like an incantation. Soon might be distinguished the various voices of the mighty trees, as they expressed their terror or their agony. The oak roared, the beech shrieked, ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter

... in a line, like a blooming girl's school on the trot, May suit the swell Club-men, my boy, but it isn't my form by a lot. Don't I jest discumfuddle the donas, and bosh the old buffers as prowl Along green country roads at their ease, till they're scared by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various

... murder at Fort Pillow), stationed here, has sent you nearly five thousand dollars for the same fund, and the 57th United States Colored Infantry desire me, at the next pay-day, to collect one dollar per man, which will swell the amount to nearly ten thousand dollars. This is a large contribution from not quite seventeen hundred men, and it could have been made larger—many of the men donating over half their pay, and in some instances the whole of it—but it was ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... south, crested with pointed cusps. Higher up still, a round window, set far back in a deep splay, lights the church above. Outside the sharp projecting outer moulding of this window are rich curling leaves, inside a rope, while other ropes run spirally across the splay, which seems to swell like a sail, and was perhaps meant to remind all who saw it that it was the sea that had brought the order and its master such riches and power. At the top are the royal arms crowned, and above the spheres of the parapet and the crosses of the cresting another larger cross dominates ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson

... teeming valleys hidden to west and north among the moors, the dwellers wherein must once have known it well. From the old threshold the eye commanded a wilderness of moors, rising wave-like one after another, from the green swell just below whereon stood Reuben Grieve's farm, to the far-distant Alderley Edge. In the hollows between, dim tall chimneys veiled in mist and smoke showed the places of the cotton towns—of Hayfield, New Mills, Staleybridge, Stockport; while in the far northwest, any gazer ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... knew; it was the Lofoten Sea over again—with its white foam-crested combers and long-drawn, heavy-breathing swell—a rolling ocean turned to rock. Peer halted a moment leaning on his stick, and his eyes half-closed. Could he not feel that same ocean-swell rising and sinking in his own being? Did not the same waves surge through the centuries, ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer

... an atmosphere which is gradually penetrating their walls and modifying their policy. An important duty devolves upon every loyal, progressive thinker,—the duty of speaking out firmly, manfully and distinctly, to swell the volume of thought which carries mankind onward to a ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various

... the destruction of many a fair town and noble forest that now lie beneath the seas, and the crumbling cliffs on our eastern shore threaten to destroy many a village church and smiling pasture. Fishermen tell you that when storms rage and the waves swell they have heard the bells chiming in the towers long covered by the seas, and nigh the picturesque village of Bosham we were told of a stretch of sea that was called the Park. This as late as the days of Henry VIII was a favourite royal hunting forest, wherein stags and fawns and does ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... head, he recognized him as the swarthy menial who had ridden behind the Grand Duchess. He was as violent and as energetic as the most lawless, and seemed engaged in pushing men into the crowd and dragging forward hesitant bystanders to swell the throng which was pressing about the iron gates ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace

... starch foods have to be prepared for eating by grinding and cooking. The grinding crushes the grains into a powder so that the starch can be sifted out from the husks and coating of the grain, and the fibres which hold it together; and the cooking causes the tiny starch grain to swell and burst the cell wall, or bag, ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... another of the Eagle's Steps; and on the fourth, where the gateway was, the little beck had been made to flow in a deep channel that had been hollowed out to serve as a moat, before it bounded down to swell the larger water-course in the ravine. A temporary bridge had been laid across; the drawbridge was out of order, and part of Hugh's business had been to procure materials for mending its apparatus. Christina was told to dismount and cross on foot. The unrailed board, so close ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and shape the same speech to their own purpose. Every State is a separate country, and cultivates a separate dialect. Then come baseball, poker, and the racecourse, each with its own metaphors to swell the hoard. And the result is a language of the street and camp, brilliant in colour, multiform in character, which has not a rival in the ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley

... it is indeed worthy of its name, being a miniature Bay of Naples,—but without its Vesuvius. It is, however, so shallow that the coasting vessels that use it are obliged to anchor at some distance from the shore, exposed to the full action of the swell. Yet in spite of this disadvantage, Cannes is for its size a ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... bristling in its face. It watched him from a distance for a little while, squealing and shaking its head in baffled fury. Then it turned and disappeared over a swell in the plain, running like ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin

... till of a sudden the boat struck as against a sunken ledge, and keeling over, spilled out the standing mate. That instant, as he fell on the whale's slippery back, the boat righted, and was dashed aside by the swell, while Radney was tossed over into the sea, on the other flank of the whale. He struck out through the spray, and, for an instant, was dimly seen through that veil, wildly seeking to remove himself from the eye of Moby Dick. But the whale rushed round in a sudden maelstrom; seized ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... century will plant an art as well as an industry of its own. Wealth, culture and peace seldom fail to win this final crown. They are busily gathering together the jewels of the past, endless in diversity of charm. Museum, gallery, library swell as never before. The earth is not mined for iron and coal alone. Statue, vase and gem are disentombed. Pictures are rescued from the grime of years and neglect. All are copied by sun or hand, and sent in more or less elaboration into hall or cottage. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... off that lee shore, and Joe found himself marveling often that so small a craft could possibly endure a minute in such elemental fury. But little by little she worked off the shore and out of the ground-swell into the deeper waters of the bay, where the main-sheet was slacked away a bit, and she ran for shelter behind the rock wall of the Alameda Mole a few miles away. Here they found the Reindeer calmly at anchor; and here, during the next several hours, straggled in the remainder of ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London

... the prior meeting one of them afterward who was most esteemed for his bravery, chid him for his fault, although with demonstrations of paternal charity. He had no intentions of exasperating him, for he knew quite well that the Indian was inducing his countrymen to swell the number of the insurgents by persuasion and threat. But the Indian would not suffer the mild rebuke for that sin, which in other circumstances would have made him experience the severities of punishment, and deeming the occasion ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various

... English heart will hear with fierce amaze That England lags so far behind in these electric days— England, whose seamen are her shield, who vaunts in speech and song, The love she bears her mariners! Wake, CAMPBELL, swift and strong Of swell and sweep as the salt waves you sang as none could sing! Rouse DIBDIN, of the homelier flight, but steady waft of wing! Poetic shades, this question, sure, should pierce the ear of death, And make ye vocal once again with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various

... of Irish emigrants in America was already beginning to be felt. Large sums of money poured in from that country to swell the Catholic rent, and a considerable portion of the funds were employed by O'Connell in providing for men who had been ejected by their landlords, for refusing either to believe a creed, or to give ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... it is easy, with a little observation, to tell whether any strange monkey comes from America or from the Old World. If it has bare seat-pads, or if when eating it fills its mouth till its cheeks swell out like little bags, we may be sure it comes from some part of Africa or Asia; while if it can curl up the end of its tail so as to take hold of anything, it is certainly American. As all the tailed monkeys of the Old World have seat-pads (or ischial callosities as they are called in scientific ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various

... will, if preserved, render us the most powerful, nation on the face of the earth. In every foreign region of the globe the title of American citizen is held in the highest respect, and when pronounced in a foreign land it causes the hearts of our countrymen to swell with honest pride. Surely when we reach the brink of the yawning abyss we shall recoil with horror ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan

... sins have been as big as all the sins of all the men in the nation; ay and of other nations too, reader; these things be not fancies, for I have smarted for this experience. It is true that Satan has the art of making the uttermost of every sin; he can blow it up, make it swell, make every hair of its head as big as a cedar;[165] but yet the least stream of the heart blood of Jesus hath vanished all away and hath made it to fly, to the astonishment of such a poor sinner, and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... the fish, and judging with marvellous accuracy the direction which they are taking. Lines of all sorts, hooks of every imaginable shape, all the tricks and devices, which have been learned by hundreds of years of experience on the fishing grounds, are employed by the people of the East Coast to swell their daily and nightly takes ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... for an absent lover, husband, friend, Is barely felt before it comes to end: A score of early consolations serve To modify its mouth's dejected curve. But woes of creditors when debtors flee Forever swell the separating sea. When standing on an alien shore you mark The steady course of some intrepid bark, How sweet to think a tear for you abides, Not all unuseful, in the wave she rides!— That sighs for you commingle in the gale Beneficently ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... inhabitants may be considered as the most ancient nation, and the oldest navigators. Their seas are calm; and, as lying between the tropics, their days and nights are nearly equal, and their seasons differ little in temperature; and as no outrageous winds swell their seas into storms, navigation among them is safe and easy. Their small barks called catamorans have only a large bough of a tree set up in the middle, serving as mast and sail; the master steers only with an oar, and the passengers sit on ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... country to the north-west, and less broken by ravines. Off these two districts we cruised for almost a month; and, whenever our distance from shore would permit it, were sure of being surrounded by canoes laden with all kinds of refreshments. We had frequently a very heavy sea, and great swell on this side of the island; and as we had no soundings, and could observe much foul ground off the shore, we never approached nearer the land than two or three leagues, excepting on ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... there are squires. Our squire isn't a swell, though he's an uncommonly good fellow. If I get a wife from one and a living from the other, I shall think myself very lucky. Miss Lawrie is a handsome girl, and everything that she ought to be; but if you were to see Kattie Forrester, I think you would say that she was A 1. I sometimes ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... herself to no bright thoughts, try as she would; the happy voices of nature that used to speak to her were all hushed,—or her ear was deaf; and her eye met nothing that did not immediately fall in with the train of sad images that were passing through her mind and swell the procession. She was fain to fall back and stay herself upon these words, the only stand-by she ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... no swell, or so little as not to endanger those who were on the schooner's bilge; and Mulford had no sooner placed her in momentary safety at least, whom he prized far higher than his own life, than he bethought him of his ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... not of structure. There is an invariable method and order in his delivery of his truth, the habitual proceeding of the mind from inmost to outmost. What earnestness and weightiness,—his eye never roving, without one swell of vanity, or one look to self, in any common form of literary pride! a theoretic or speculative man, but whom no practical man in the universe could affect to scorn. Plato is a gownsman; his garment, though of purple, and almost skywoven, is an academic robe, ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... reached by a carefully planned, fatiguing flight of steps to the top of a bluff, where three churches at the back beckon so many recording angels to swell the purgatory lists. As you advance to the abrupt edge, everything is spread before you; nothing is concealed. In the first plane, the entangling branches of a score of apple-trees are ready to trap ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson

... answer to his summons, but the sound of the water seemed to swell in volume, filling the night. It drove him to a fierce impatience. If he had not seen the light he would scarcely have taken the risk. None but a fool would have remained in such a death-trap. But the presence of the light forced him on. He could not leave without satisfying himself. ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... fortune, and my pity or contempt for those with whom I associated. From the nobleman, whose acres were nightly melting in the dice box, there were adventurers even to the UNFLEDGED APPRENTICE, who came with the pillage of his unsuspecting master's till, to swell the guilty bank of Dame N— and Co. Were the Commissioners of Bankruptcy to know how many citizens are prepared for them at those houses, they would be ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... now? Go ask the angel throng, as they tune their harps to melodious songs on high, and they will point to two sister spirits, who day and night in company present themselves before God; and as one rank after another comes up from heathen lands to swell the chorus of the redeemed and ascribe their conversion to the efforts of the early missionary laborers who, under God, were made the humble instruments in the great work, meekly will be heard from the spirit lips of Harriet Newell and Ann H. Judson the reply, "Not ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy

... this day, and could I give expression to the emotions which swell up within me I would do so, but my power fails in the attempt, and I cannot presume to make a speech. We do not, however, meet to consult about California, where one hundred and twelve hour speeches are necessary, or about the admission ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... tortuous stream of mud that can be navigated by large vessels only by daylight and with favoring conditions of tide, for its channel is seldom two days alike. This demands expert piloting, and explains why Hooghly pilots are selected with great caution. A Hooghly pilot is the very maximum of a nautical swell, and one's boarding of a ship attended by man-servant and a mass of belongings partakes somewhat of ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... another, "is like an AEolian harp, so finely strung that it answers to the faintest movement of the air by a proportionate vibration. With every stronger current its music rises along an almost immeasurable scale, which begins with the lowest and softest whisper, and ends in the full swell of ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... shocked his readers, he had also greatly advanced his newspaper. It was bought—first, by all the people who agreed with him and wanted to read it; and secondly, by all the people who disagreed with him, and wanted to write him letters. Those letters were voluminous (I helped, I am glad to say, to swell their volume), and they were generally inserted with a generous fulness. Thus was accidentally discovered (like the steam-engine) the great journalistic maxim—that if an editor can only make people angry enough, they will write half his ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... wind had dropped. The swell rolled their craft as it plowed along. Here and there a sea-lion thrust its ugly head from the water. Twice a seal attempted to climb upon the slippery hull for a rest, but, to the amusement of the boys, slid back into the water. An offer to assist the third one was ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell

... right. I have not even availed myself of the whole tenor of sacred history to justify it, which has been done heretofore by others, and done in vain. I have not labored to produce a voluminous collation of other men's opinions to swell my pages. Sacred history is in the hands of all, and its teachings need not my endorsement, recommendation, nor reiteration. Indeed, if the right of slavery here asserted is not based upon truth, and if it does not commend itself to the unbiased judgment of my countrymen, then ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit

... come to me or else he wont know where to go. I would take it more than kind of you if you was to come out of Central India in time to catch him at Marwar Junction, and say to him:He has gone South for the week. Hell know what that means. Hes a big man with a red beard, and a great swell he is. Youll find him sleeping like a gentleman with all his luggage round him in a second-class compartment. But dont you be afraid. Slip down the window, and say:He has gone South for the week, and hell tumble. Its only cutting your time of stay in those parts by two days. I ask you ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling

... the two Indians gallop away till they neared the crest of a low swell. Then they leapt from their horses, and stooping low went forward. In a short time they lay prone on the ground, and wriggled along until just on ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... leave it to any one—the swell of my fifteen-years-old manhood at learning that French Frank, the adventurer of fifty, the sailor of all the seas of all the world, was jealous of me—and jealous over a girl most romantically named the Queen of the Oyster Pirates. I had read of such things in ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London

... been either in dirt, or close to dirt, save once, and then, following upon six days of excessive dirt, which she had ridden out under the shelter of the redoubtable Terra Del Fuego coast, she had almost gone ashore during a heavy swell in the dead calm that had suddenly fallen. For seven weeks she had wrestled with the Cape Horn gray-beards, and in return been buffeted and smashed by them. She was a wooden ship, and her ceaseless straining had opened ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London

... neatly put, elicits Such "double rounds of cheering." "Vive CARNOT!" To be sure! My annual visits, France to the Flag endearing By sweet-phrased flattery of the Fatherland, Are sure to swell our legions. "I wish, France, to be thine!" The effect was grand, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various

... endeavours to discover the essence and import of those manifold, inarticulate, or unintelligible sounds, which, with the long flight of time, develop into the splendidly rounded periods of a Webster or a Gladstone, or swell nobly in the rhythmic beauties of a ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... the whole of the first day of the voyage in their berths, for there was a heavy swell in the sea, and toward evening the wind blew pretty fresh, and the DUNCAN tossed and ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... no correction, but sat whistling a merry tune as he looked over the country. The bone man drove in silence until they rose a swell that brought the town of Ascalon into view, a passenger train ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... Don Quixote in a loud voice, "I elect to do my penance. Here shall the tears from my eyes swell the limpid streams, and here shall the sighs of my heart stir the leaves of every mountain tree. O Dulcinea of Toboso, day of my night and star of my fortunes, consider the pass to which I am come, and return a favourable answer ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... Conway had replied. "A certain horrible fellow of the name of Musselboro, will almost certainly be there. He always is when they have anything of a swell dinner-party. He is a sort of partner of Broughton's in the City. He wears a lot of chains, and has elaborate whiskers, and an elaborate waistcoat, which is worse; and he doesn't wash his hands as often as he ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... which they had been resting, and the handle sprang up. There was a cry from Allan, and Tom saw to his horror that one end of the iron bar had struck the boy just above the eye. It was a painful blow, and the bruise began at once to discolor and swell, so that by the time his father came up poor Allan ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous

... by water in the ship's boat, and when we entered the bay of Tior it was high noon. The heat had been intense, as we had been floating upon the long smooth swell of the ocean, for there was but little wind. The sun's rays had expended all their fury upon us; and to add to our discomfort, we had omitted to supply ourselves with water previous to starting. What with heat and thirst together, I became so impatient to get ashore, that when at last we ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... that swell the heart and make it bigger and warmer, Patty, just as there are cares that shrivel it and leave it tired and cold. Love lightens Ivory's afflictions but that is something you and I have to do ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin

... or other to check the large number of our boys and girls who, after leaving the Primary School, drift year by year, either through the ignorance or the cupidity or the poverty of their parents, into the ranks of untrained labour, and who in the course of two or three years go to swell the ranks of the unskilled, casual workers, and become in many cases, in the course of time, the unemployed and the unemployable. In the second place, we must endeavour to secure the better technical training of the youth during ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch

... He saw the swell of her bosom below the pure white shoulders. All her intoxicating beauty seemed to be pleading to him. Her lips, made for kissing, were like alluring blossoms of spring. For a moment he stood drunk with passionate desire. Then he touched her ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild

... this Indian bill, and my conscience yet tells me that I gave a good, honest vote, and one that I believe will not make me ashamed in the day of judgment. I served out my term, and though many amusing, things happened, I am not disposed to swell my narrative ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott

... It's rawhide. The saliver from my mouth only mykes it swell. Of course that tightens the knot. It mykes it slimy, too, so's I carn't keep 'old of it." He scrambled to his feet with a hasty apology for ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton

... and suspicions of the past weeks were forgotten. She telegraphed her acceptance, and began thinking what to wear during the visit. She admitted in her mind that Mrs. Harland was a "bigger swell" than she, and knew more of the world and Society. But she determined that the hostess should not outdo her guest in the way of ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... working lass, Julia, fit mate for a working man. Do you think he's one of our sort? Not he! Do you think he's for marrying a girl who works for her bread? If you do, you're a bigger fool than I think you. He's forever nosing around amongst these swell ladies and gentlemen with handles to their names, ladies and gentlemen who live on the other side of the earth to us. He can talk like a prophet, I grant you, but that's all there is of the prophet about him. People's man, ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... stature of a man. Mingle, O bells, along the Western slope, With your deep toll a sound of faith and hope! Wave cheerily still, O banner, halfway down, From thousand-masted bay and steepled town! Let the strong organ with its loftiest swell Lift the proud sorrow of the land, and tell That the brave sower saw his ripened grain. O East and West! O morn and sunset twain No more forever!—has he lived in vain Who, priest of Freedom, made ye one and told Your bridal service ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds

... right," was the answer. "Say, Leonard, who's that young cit with the swell team who came to take Mrs. Davies sleighing? I ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... swell," said Peter Quick Banta. "Look at that face! I don't care if he did crawl outa the gutter. I'm an artist and I reco'nize aristocracy when I see it. And I want him ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... halting and patchy, ill-lettered, passionate and rude; bald of one cheek and blind of one eye, and his legs were of different sizes, nevertheless by process of ascent have we, his descendants, manfully continued to develop and to progress, and to swell in everything, until from Homer we came to Euripides, and from Euripides to Seneca, and from Seneca to Boethius and his peers; and from these to Duns Scotus, and so upwards through James I of England and the fifth, sixth ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc

... electric launch, if there was a heavy sea on, for shaking certainly did not increase the efficiency of the accumulators, but a fair amount of motion they could stand, and they had run on the Thames, by the side of heavy tug boats causing a considerable amount of swell, without any mishap. Of course each box was provided with a lid, and the plates were so closely packed that a fair amount of shaking would not affect them; the only danger was the spilling of the acid. Mr. Crohne had remarked ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various

... gray-headed servitors were left to guard the precincts of the castle, for no attack was apprehended from the marauders of the forest, as the Normans styled the English; and every one who could bear arms had left to swell the final triumph ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... cords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various

... the reciprocity treaty with the British American Provinces, partly brought about, no doubt, by a Southern fear that Canada, bitter over the loss of special advantages in British markets by the British free trade of 1846, might join the United States and thus swell the Northern and free states of the Union. Cotton interests and trade became the dominant British commercial tie with the United States, and the one great hope, to the British minds, of a break in the false ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... that the place is the crown's) he shouts: What, he will come to us! But you are welcome! For Christmas or carnival you are invited. The girls await you with knots in their handkerchiefs, your head will swell. You will do well to dress as the devil; we shall say a prayer, and you will disappear when the cock crows. Do better, remain at home, play hide and seek or blind man's buff. Enough of such farces! don't you see that your soldiers are cripples, dandies? They ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose

... wolf often bayed at the door of the Strehla household, without a wolf from the mountains coming down. Dorothea was one of those maidens who almost work miracles, so far can their industry and care and intelligence make a home sweet and wholesome and a single loaf seem to swell into twenty. The children were always clean and happy, and the table was seldom without its big pot of soup once a day. Still, very poor they were, and Dorothea's heart ached with shame, for she knew that their father's ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)

... by a peal of thunder, which separated the combatants; another combat against the Giants in Gaul, during which, as it was said, Jupiter rained down vast quantities of stones; all these are also attributed to Hercules, besides many more stories, which, if diligently collected, would swell to a ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... ruin-sown land, showed that the city was yet far off; but this poor relief was rare and short-lived. The carriage dipped down again into a hollow of the black dry sea, and for a long time there was nothing visible save its petrified swell ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... turnip. A perfect pouter, seen on a windy day, is certainly a ludicrous sight: his feathered legs have the appearance of white trousers; his tapering tail looks like a swallow-tailed coat; his head is entirely concealed by his immense windy protuberance; and, altogether, he reminds you of a little "swell" of a past century, staggering under a bale of linen. The most common pouters are the blues, buffs, and whites, or an intermixture of all these various colours. The pouter is not a prolific breeder, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... with lamentations and loud moans, Resounded through the air pierced by no star, That e'en I wept at entering. Various tongues, Horrible languages, outcries of woe, Accents of anger, voices deep and hoarse, With hands together smote that swell'd the sounds, Made up a tumult, that for ever whirls Round through that air with solid darkness stain'd, Like to the sand that in the whirlwind flies. * * * * * I then: Master! What doth aggrieve them thus, That they lament so loud? He straight replied: That will I tell thee briefly. These of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... four hours to wait; but during that time the wind gradually subsided, and then went down to a light and fitful breeze. At dawn of day the mast rose and fell with the swell of the sea, which still heaved after the late commotion, but without any run in any particular direction, for it was now calm. I had been sitting on the mast with my back against the futtock-shrouds; I now rose up with difficulty, for I was sorely bruised, and stood upon the mast clear from the ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... what it means, here in this United Kingdom—England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales—to hear one plain, harmonious, great united voice over the seas from our great dominions. [Cheers.] Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, our crown colonies, swell the chorus. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... of iron filings with, brimstone and water, begins to ferment, it also turns black, and begins to swell, and it continues to do so, till it occupies twice as much space as it did at first. The force with which it expands is great; but how great it is I have ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley

... duck line, and for two hours we sat all hunched up in a little boat among a lot of weeds. It was getting to be a sad affair for me, and I was thinking of Atlantic City, and the bands of music, and the swell dances, and trying to figure where these hunters have the fun they are always coming home and talking about, when suddenly along came a drove of ducks. On the square, there must have been a million. The other members of the party began picking them off, but your Uncle Bill is one of those wise shooters. ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.

... make a slave of myself about it, if you mean that. I don't suppose I shall ever marry,—and as for rising to be a swell in the profession, I don't care ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... showed him a thing or two, and he began to improve by my hints. He is not above taking hints, I will say that for him; and his riding! Why, I thought from those prints in his room that he was ever such a swell; but I don't believe he was ever outside a horse before. Even the ploughmen laughed at him. 'Get inside and pull up the windows!' they ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough

... part I was playin' when we strikes the Tuscarora. Sounds like a parlor car, don't it? But it was just one of those swell bachelor joints—fourteen stories, electric elevators, suites of two and three rooms, for gents only. Course, we hadn't no more call to go there than to the Stock Exchange, but Leonidas Macklin, he's one of the kind that don't wait for cards. Seein' ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... pow'r of song, and nature's love, Which raise the soul all vulgar themes above, The mountain grove Would Edwin rove, In pensive mood, alone; And seek the woody dell, Where noontide shadows fell, Cheering, Veering, Mov'd by the zephyr's swell. Here nurs'd he thoughts to genius only known, When nought was heard around But sooth'd the rest profound Of rural beauty on her mountain throne. Nor less he lov'd (rude nature's child) The elemental conflict wild; When, fold on fold, above was pil'd The watery swathe, careering on the wind. Such ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... might do it a bit oftener," said Louis, and then went on: "I say, don't you think it might be a good thing if you took your boot off. You never know, when you've slipped, whether it won't swell—I mean ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett

... we rounded Point Everitt, and then encountered a strong breeze and heavy swell, which by causing the canoes to pitch very much, greatly impeded our progress. Some deer being seen grazing in a valley near the beach, we landed and sent St. Germain and Adam in pursuit of them, who soon killed three which were ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin

... gracious and amenable to reason, both in respect of the choice of plantation ditties and the use of the barn as a place of entertainment. She even vouchsafed the further and most valuable suggestion that they might supply refreshments and charge for them, to help to swell the funds. ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... sourly. "I knew it anyway. He's got the sissy manners of a Frenchy, even if he don't look the part. No white man tips his lid to nobody except a swell skirt." ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... shall be put up like a prince," said Mac-Guffog. "But mark ye me, friend, that we may have nae colly-shangie [*Quarrel] afterhend, these are the fees I always charge a swell that must have his libken to himsell—Thirty shillings a week for lodgings, and a guinea for garnish; half-a-guinea a week for a single bed,—and I dinna get the whole of it, for I must gie half-a-crown out ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... present position, could have picked them easily off with perfect safety to themselves; and riding rapidly forward with Captain Lane, to see if we could by some means turn their flank, a few horsemen at this moment suddenly appeared over the swell on the opposite side of the ravine, the foremost of whom, whilst making many friendly signals, galloped across the intervening space, hailing us a friend, and at the same time waving his hand, to prevent his own people ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... and the traveller can scarcely have perceived his progress, or have known whither or how to direct his steps. The rivers alone, with their broad sweeps and bold reaches, their periodical changes of swell and fall, their strength, motion, and life-giving power, can have been objects of thought and interest to the first inhabitants; and it is still to these that the modern must turn who wishes to represent, to himself or others, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson

... to join the lookout. As he ascended, those below saw the little craft rise high and slow on a broad swell. ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams

... other night showin' him his girl's picture, and the Pilot thought she was a fine girl too, and got her address down, and said he was going to write her and tell her what a fine chap the corporal was, and you ought to see Corporal Thom swell up until ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor



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