swelled, ppl. a.
(swɛld)
[Weak pa. pple. of swell v.: see -ed1. Less frequent as an adj. in most senses than the strong pa. pple. swollen.]
a. In senses of swell v., lit. and fig.; esp. in sense ‘morbidly enlarged, affected with tumour’.
| 1611 Shakes. Cymb. v. v. 162 Hearing vs praise our Loues of Italy For Beauty, that made barren the swell'd boast Of him that best could speake. 1670 Dryden 1st Pt. Conq. Granada ii. i, The swell'd Ambition of his Mind. 1726 Dict. Rust., Swelled pizzle, a kind of hardness that proceeds from a Horse's being bruised by Riding. 1733 in 10th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm. App. i. 251 He has so bad a cold, and swelled face. 1753 J. Bartlet Gentl. Farriery 296 margin, How swelled heels should be treated. 1842 Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl. V. 81/2 Swelled Friezes.—This invention bears a close resemblance to an article of dress said to have been used by our great grandmothers, called a bustle. 1869 Tanner Clin. Med. (ed. 2) 312 The symptoms..are..fœtid breath, swelled belly, emaciated extremities. 1913 Dorland Med. Dict., Roup, an infectious respiratory disease of poultry..sometimes called avian diphtheria and swelled head. |
b. swelled head (fig.): inordinate self-conceit, excessive pride or vanity (humorously regarded as a morbid affection); also, a person affected with ‘swelled head’. colloq. Hence swelled-headedness.
Cf. the earlier swell-head(ed s.v. swell-.
| 1862 Harper's Mag. June 33/1 He was set down as a born aristocrat and ‘swelled head’. 1891 Kipling Light that Failed iv. 69 Dick, it is of common report that you are suffering from swelled head. 1900 Times 7 July 10/1 The Queen's-hall was filled with swelled heads, and, judging from your correspondent's note, the swelled heads elected one of their own body. 1907 E. Reich (title) Germany's Swelled Head. Ibid. 1 The Germans are afflicted with the severest attack of swelled-headedness known to modern history. |