swole

English

Alternative forms

• swoll

Etymology

From earlier swoll, from Middle English swal, swall, swalle (simple past tense), and suoll, suolle, swalle, swol, swole, swolle, iswolle, yswolle (past participle), inflected forms of swellen (“to swell”), from Old English sweall (simple past tense), from Proto-Germanic *swall, first and third person singular preterite of Proto-Germanic *swellaną (“to swell”); further origin uncertain.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /swəʊl/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /swoʊl/
• Rhymes: -əʊl

Adjective

swole (comparative swoler, superlative swolest)

1. (chiefly African-American Vernacular, dialectal) Swollen, enlarged.
   • 1929 May, Harry G. Huse, “The One Big Union”, in The Frontier: A Magazine of the Northwest, volume IX, number 4, page 338:

     Well, we git him into the cook-car between us, and git him stretched out on the table and some water on him. He's kind of a sorry sight what with the black eye and swole lip he got earlier in the evenin' and now a lump on his head the size of a hen's egg where the potato masher's hit him.

   • 1950, Robert Penn Warren, World Enough and Time: A Romantic Novel, New York, N.Y.: Random House, page 370:

     Hell fahr, I bet my head is so swole with law I oughta be jedge and make them lawyers yore-honor me all day long, till cows drop coon-hounds stid of calves and bulls grow tits.

   • 1975, Oakley Hall, The Adelita, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., →ISBN, page 56:

     Anyone they missed could get away over the fence while they was reloading. Neither one of them would quit though their trigger fingers got so swole they couldn't get them out of the guard.

   • 1989, Bronwyn Williams, Dandelion, Toronto, O.N. : Harlequin Books, →ISBN, page 244:

     "Brownie expects me. She'll get swole if I don't milk her first thing."

   • 2006, Daniel Woodrell, Winter's Bone: A Novel, New York, N.Y., Boston, M.A.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 151:

     Sonny asked, "Will you see good again out of that swole eye?"

   • 2006, Noire , Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 130:

     Ruthless Rap hooked me up with a local studio so I could still record for them, but they were grimy when it came to paying on time so I had started stealing again almost as soon as I hit the campus. How else was I gonna keep my pockets swole?

   1. (slang) Of a person: having large, well-developed muscles; muscular.

      Synonyms: brawny, buff; see also Thesaurus:strapping

      I ain't swole enough, brah. I gotta work out in the gym more.

      • 2005, Kalisha Buckhanon, “February 11, 1990”, in Upstate, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, →ISBN:

        I will find something to slit my throat or hang some sheets from the ceiling or make one of these big, swole niggaz in here so mad at me that they break my neck.

      • 2011, Nikki Turner, “Who’s Fooling Whom?”, in A Woman’s Work: Street Chronicles (Nikki Turner Presents), New York, N.Y.: One World Trade Paperbacks, Ballantine Books, →ISBN:

        "That nigga lucky he still breathing right now, yo. I should've sent some of my niggas from Bunche Place over there to take care of his swole ass," Scoot said.

      • 2015, Nicole Winters, chapter 1, in The Jock and the Fat Chick, New York, N.Y.: Harper Teen, HarperCollins, →ISBN:

        It's the athletes who showed me how to get "swole." I found a series of online videos by this megaripped dude who taught me how to fine-tune my body and turn it into a machine. [...] It worked; I got swole.

   2. (slang) Of a person: erect; having an erection of the penis; sexually aroused, hard.

      Synonyms: erect, bricked up

      her titties got me swole

      • 1978, Bruce Eliot [pseudonym; Edward Field and Neil Derrick], The Potency Clinic, New York, N.Y.: Bleecker Street Press, →OCLC:

        You'd like him a lot. Big and all swole up thinking about you. What kind of panties you got on, Olive?

2. (figuratively)
   1. Full (of something); bursting with.
      • 1925, Dorothy Scarborough, The Wind, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, page 119:

        Sourdough went on to explain the occasion for the festivity. "The Popplewells are so swole with pride now they got the upstairs house finished that they got to give a house-warmin'."

      • 1951, Jean Kerr, Eleanor Brooke, King of Hearts, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., page 54:

        Honey, I'm all swole up with pride. Here's the horrible part. You're going to have to stay here and meet Norman.

      • 2009, Tara Betts, “Don't Ask, Just Know”, in Arc and Hue, Detroit, M.I.: Willow Books, →ISBN, page 73:

        Sweating and red on the dance floor / without meat hooks aimed at my skin, / except for one woman, I ducked / into a room swole with men in work boots.

      • 2013, Bill Cheng, Southern Cross the Dog, London: Picador, published 2014, →ISBN, page 315:

        It was a place she'd heard about only in story — a trapper country where the waters were swole with trout and beaver, and where the L'Etangs fatted and thrived.

   2. Extremely proud or arrogant.
      • 2001, Daniel Woodrell, The Death of Sweet Mister: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Marian Wood Books, →ISBN, page 146:

        Strangers weren't sure she was drunk, but I knew. Granny got braggish when drunk. She got swole up about herself. When she took to bragging on her thoughts and notions it was time to jump from the station wagon and walk or brace for a crash.

      • 2008, David Fuller, Sweetsmoke, London: Abacus, →ISBN, page 232:

        Just shut your hole and listen, swole-headed prick.

      • 2022, Namwali Serpell, The Furrows: An Elegy, London, New York, N.Y.: Hogarth, →ISBN, page 153:

        I'm still grinning like a fool when I walk out. I'm so swole with my own foresight that it takes me a minute to realize that C's gone.

   3. (usually followed by up) Upset; experiencing strong negative emotion.
      • 1956, Charles Williams, chapter 4, in The Diamond Bikini (Gold Medal Books; s607), Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, →OCLC; republished : Open Road Media, 2012, →ISBN:

        Every once in a while, maybe twice a year, Bessie gets all galled under the britchin' about something [...] Usually over some triflin' little thing that don't amount to a hill of beans, like I won't wash my feet or something, but she gets all swole up like a snakebit pup and says she's leavin' me for good this time.

      • 2006, Alex Taylor, “The Name of the Nearest River”, in American Short Fiction, Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 34; republished in The Name of the Nearest River: Stories (The Linda Bruckheimer Series in Kentucky Literature), Louisville, Ky.: Sarabande Books, 2010, →ISBN, page 6:

        She could pitch drunks out in the street like horseshoes and before then I'd never thought of her in a lovely way, she being big and thick, but now I saw her in Pugh's office peeling off her Wranglers and showing her dimpled thighs and I just got all swole up with lonesome.

      • 2012, Noire, Natural Born Liar: The Misadventures of Mink LaRue, New York, N.Y.: Dafina Books, →ISBN, page 233:

        "My mother said I can stay here as long as I want to," I said, irking the shit outta him. He got swole just like I knew he would.

      • 2012, Amos Walker, chapter 22, in Justice and the Heart, : Xlibris, →ISBN, page 125:

        Of course, they was all swole up about it. Aint no self-repect'n smithy or ranch hand would be caught dead do'n housework.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Verb

swole

1. (African-American Vernacular, Southern US, also in other English varieties in the simple past tense until early 20th c.) simple past and past participle of swell: swelled; swollen.

   His arm just swole up.

   I ate until my belly had swole.

   • a. 1631 (date written), J[ohn] Donne, “The Storme. To Mr. Christopher Brooke.”, in Poems, with Elegies on the Authors Death, London: M F for Iohn Marriot, , published 1633, →OCLC, page 57:

     Mildly it [the wind] kiſt our ſailes, and, freſh, and ſweet, / As, to a ſtomack ſterv’d, whoſe inſides meete, / Meate comes, it came; and ſwole our ſailes, when wee / So joyd, as Sara’ her ſwelling joy’d to ſee.

   • 1914, Percival Christopher Wren, “Lucille”, in Snake and Sword: A Novel, London, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co. , →OCLC, part II (The Searing of a Soul), page 78:

     If you drinks a drop more, Miss Lucy, you'll just go like my pore young sister goed, [...] Pop she did not. She swole … swole and swole. [...] I say she swole—and what is more she swole clean into a dropsy.

   • 1966 [1961], William S. Burroughs, The Soft Machine (The Nova Trilogy), New York: Grove Press, page 15:

     [M]y tongue swole up and gagged me and my eyes blurred over with blood […] .

   • 1977, John Cheever, Falconer (A Borzoi Book), New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN, page 185:

     Then they had this guy with clap, a light case of clap, and they gave him inoculations and his balls swole up, they swole up as big as basketballs, they swole and swole so he couldn't walk and they had to take him out of here on a board with these big globes sticking up in the sheet.

   • 1992, Olive Ann Burns, chapter 9, in Leaving Cold Sassy: The Unfinished Sequel to Cold Sassy Tree, New York, N.Y.: Ticknor and Fields, →ISBN, page 99; 1st Mariner Books edition, New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007, →ISBN:

     [A] man from White County had the dropsy? You know, somethin' wrong with his heart and him swole up all over? Uncle Alva said the man at the ho-tel said the man come up there swole up all over like he'd bust if you stuck a pin in him.

   • 1999 April 6, Stephen King, The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Scribner, →ISBN; republished New York, N.Y.: Pocket Books, May 2017, →ISBN, pages 67–68:

     She had overheard her Mom and Mrs. Thomas from across the street talking about someone who was allergic to stings, and Mrs. Thomas had said, "Ten seconds after it gut im, poor ole Frank was swole up like a balloon. If he hadn't had his little kit with the hyperdermic, I guess he woulda choked to death."

References

Further reading

• Jonathon Green (2024) “swole adj.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang
• “swole, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Anagrams

• Sowle, lowes, sowle