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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

swelter.

To suffer terribly from intense heat.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈswɛl.tə/UK/ˈswɛl.tɚ/US
  1. To suffer terribly from intense heat.

    intransitive
  2. To perspire greatly from heat.

    intransitive
  3. To cause to faint, to overpower, as with heat.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English swelteren, frequentative form of Middle English swelten (“to die; faint”), from Old English sweltan (“to die”), from Proto-West Germanic *sweltan, from Proto-Germanic *sweltaną (“to die”), from Proto-Indo-European *swel- (“to smolder; burn”), equivalent to swelt + -er (frequentative suffix).

noun/ˈswɛl.tə/UK/ˈswɛl.tɚ/US
  1. Intense heat.

    The summer swelter did not relent until late in September, most years.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English swelteren, frequentative form of Middle English swelten (“to die; faint”), from Old English sweltan (“to die”), from Proto-West Germanic *sweltan, from Proto-Germanic *sweltaną (“to die”), from Proto-Indo-European *swel- (“to smolder; burn”), equivalent to swelt + -er (frequentative suffix).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.