sweltering

Use Sweltering in a sentence

adjective

suffering oppressive heat.

characterized by oppressive heat; sultry.

Relevant Questions

What Is Swel·ter?

Origin:
1565–75; swelter + -ing²

Related forms

swel·ter·ing·ly, adverb

un·swel·ter·ing, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged

verb (used without object)

to suffer from oppressive heat.

verb (used with object)

to oppress with heat.

Archaic. to exude, as venom.

noun

a sweltering condition.

Origin:
1375–1425; late Middle English swelt(e)ren (v.), equivalent to swelt(en) to be overcome with heat (Old English sweltan to die; cognate with Old Norse svelta, Gothic swiltan) + -eren -er⁶

Related forms

un·swel·tered, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Link To sweltering

00:10

Sweltering is always a great word to know.

So is bezoar. Does it mean:

a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.

a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

swelter (ˈswɛltə)

—vb
1.	(intr) to suffer under oppressive heat, esp to sweat and feel faint
2.	archaic (tr) to exude (venom)
3.	rare (tr) to cause to suffer under oppressive heat

—n
4.	a sweltering condition (esp in the phrase in a swelter)
5.	oppressive humid heat

[C15 swelten, from Old English sweltan to die; related to Old Norse svelta to starve, Old High German swelzan to burn with passion; see sultry]

sweltering (ˈswɛltərɪŋ)

—*adj*
	oppressively hot and humid: a sweltering day

'swelteringly

—*adv*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

swelter

c.1403, frequentative of swelten "be faint (especially with heat)," c.1386, from O.E. sweltan "to die," from P.Gmc. *swel- (cf. O.S. sweltan "to die," O.N. svelta "to put to death, starve," Goth. sviltan "to die"), originally "to burn slowly," hence "to be overcome with heat or fever;" also the source

of O.E. swelan "to burn," from PIE base *swel- "to shine, burn" (see Selene). For specialization of words meaning "to die," cf. starve.

Example sentences

They had many benefits in the sweltering heat of the rugged border region.

But so many more, it seemed, withstood the sweltering heat.

In addition to the discomfort, it can keep swimmers out of the water for several sweltering weeks.

Released six hours later, the three rights workers drove off into the sweltering darkness.

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Related Words

sultry

sweltry

Matching Quote

"Thus it appears that the sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well. In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat-Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Bramin, priest of Brahma and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water jug. I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges. With favoring winds it is wafted past the site of the fabulous islands of Atlantis and the Hesperides, makes the periplus of Hanno, and, floating by Ternate and Tidore and the mouth of the Persian Gulf, melts in the tropic gales of the Indian seas, and is landed in ports of which Alexander only heard the names."

-Henry David Thoreau