WordWeb Online

1. An abnormal protuberance or localized enlargement
   - puffiness, lump
    
2. Something that bulges out or is protuberant or projects from its surroundings
   - bulge, bump, hump, gibbosity, gibbousness, jut, prominence, protuberance, protrusion, extrusion, excrescence
    
3. The increase in volume of certain substances when they are heated (often accompanied by release of water)
   - intumescence, intumescency

1. Increase in size, magnitude, number, or intensity
   "The music swelled to a crescendo"
    
2. Become filled with pride, arrogance, or anger
   "The mother was swelling with importance when she spoke of her son";
   - puff up
    
3. Expand abnormally
   "The bellies of the starving children are swelling";
   - swell up, intumesce, tumefy, tumesce, puff
    
4. Come up (as of feelings and thoughts, or other ephemeral things)
   "Smoke swelled from it";
   - well up
    
5. Come up, as of a liquid
   "Tears swell in her eyes";
   - well
    
6. Cause to become swollen
   "The water swells the wood"

Derived forms: swellings

Type of: act, arise, behave, chemical action, chemical change, chemical process, come up, develop, do, enlargement, expand, grow, increase, originate, projection, rise, rise up, spring up, surface, symptom, uprise

Encyclopedia: Swelling