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Sea vs Swell - What's the difference?

sea | swell |

As verbs the difference between sea and swell

is that sea is to saw while swell is to become bigger, especially due to being engorged.

As a noun swell is

the act of swelling.

As an adjective swell is

excellent.

sea

English

Noun

  • A large body of salty water. (Major seas are known as oceans.)
  • (label) A large number or quantity; a vast amount.
    • A sea of faces stared back at the singer.
    With no power for the electric lights, the house was a sea of darkness.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2013, date=April 9, author=Andrei Lankov, title=Stay Cool. Call North Korea’s Bluff., work=New York Times citation
    • , passage=In the last two decades, North Korea has on various occasions conducted highly provocative missile and nuclear tests and promised to turn Seoul into a sea of fire. }}
  • A heavy wave.
  • (label) A large, dark plain of rock; a mare.

    • Synonyms

    * the ogin (UK'', ''nautical and navy )

    Derived terms

    {{der3, deep sea , freedom of the seas , high seas , open sea , seabased , sea breeze , seachange, sea change , sea cow , sea dragon , seafood , seagull , seahorse , sea cucumber , sea grape , sea hare , sea hog , sea level , sea liver , sea louse , sea monster , sea otter , seaplane , sea pork , sea room , sea sawdust , seaside , sea slug , sea squirt , seastar , sea urchin , sea wolf}}

    See also

    * ocean * The Seven Seas

    References

    Statistics

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    Anagrams

    * ----

    swell

    English

    Verb

  • To become bigger, especially due to being engorged.
  • * Shakespeare
    • Monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
  • To cause to become bigger.
    • Rains and dissolving snow swell the rivers in spring.
  • * Atterbury
    • It is low ebb with his accuser when such peccadilloes are put to swell the charge.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1905, author=
    • , title= , chapter=2 citation , passage=For this scene, a large number of supers are engaged, and in order to further swell the crowd, practically all the available stage hands have to ‘walk on’ dressed in various coloured dominoes, and all wearing masks.}}
  • * 2013 June 18, (Simon Romero), " Protests Widen as Brazilians Chide Leaders," New York Times (retrieved 21 June 2013):
    • After a harsh police crackdown last week fueled anger and swelled protests, President Dilma Rousseff, a former guerrilla who was imprisoned under the dictatorship and has now become the target of pointed criticism herself, tried to appease dissenters by embracing their cause on Tuesday.
  • To grow gradually in force or loudness.
    • The organ music swelled .
  • To raise to arrogance; to puff up; to inflate.
    • to be swelled with pride or haughtiness
  • To be raised to arrogance.
  • * Shakespeare
    • Here he comes, swelling like a turkey cock.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
    • You swell at the tartan, as the bull is said to do at scarlet.
  • To be elated; to rise arrogantly.
  • * Dryden
    • Your equal mind yet swells not into state.
  • To be turgid, bombastic, or extravagant.
    • swelling''' words; a '''swelling style
  • To protuberate; to bulge out.
    • A cask swells in the middle.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of swelling.
  • Increase of power in style, or of rhetorical force.
  • * Landor:
    • the swell and subsidence of his periods
  • A long series of ocean waves, generally produced by wind, and lasting after the wind has ceased.
  • * 1883 , , Treasure Island , ch. 24:
    • There was a great, smooth swell upon the sea.
  • (music) A gradual crescendo followed by diminuendo.
  • * , chapter=5
    • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=He was thinking; but the glory of the song, the swell from the great organ, the clustered lights, […], the height and vastness of this noble fane, its antiquity and its strength—all these things seemed to have their part as causes of the thrilling emotion that accompanied his thoughts.}}
  • (music) A device for controlling the volume of a pipe organ.
  • (music) A division in a pipe organ, usually the largest enclosed division.
  • A hillock or similar raised area of terrain.
  • * 1909 , , The Last of the Chiefs , ch. 2:
    • Off on the crest of a swell a moving figure was seen now and then. "Antelope," said the hunters.
  • (informal) A person who is dressed in a fancy or elegant manner.
  • * , "The Kickleburys on the Rhine" in The Christmas Books of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh :
    • It costs him no more to wear all his ornaments about his distinguished person than to leave them at home. If you can be a swell at a cheap rate, why not?
  • * 1887 , , The Cash Boy , ch. 9:
    • He was dressed in a flashy style, not unlike what is popularly denominated a swell .
  • (informal) A person of high social standing; an important person.
  • * 1864 , , The Small House at Allington , ch. 2:
    • "I am not in Mr Crosbie's confidence. He is in the General Committee Office, I know; and, I believe, has pretty nearly the management of the whole of it." . . .
    "I'll tell you what he is, Bell; Mr Crosbie is a swell'." And Lilian Dale was right; Mr Crosbie was a ' swell .
  • * 1906 , , The Trespasser , ch. 8:
    • You buy a lot of Indian or halfbreed loafers with beaver-skins and rum, go to the Mount of the Burning Arrows, and these fellows dance round you and call you one of the lost race, the Mighty Men of the Kimash Hills. And they'll do that while the rum lasts. Meanwhile you get to think yourself a devil of a swell —you and the gods!

    Synonyms

    * (person dressed in a fancy or elegant manner) dandy, dude, toff * (person of high social standing) toff

    Derived terms

    * ground swell, groundswell * upswell * wind swell

    Adjective

    (en-adj)
  • Excellent.
  • * 2012 , (Ariel Levy), "The Space In Between", The New Yorker , 10 Sep 2012:
    • Orgasms are swell , but they are not the remedy to every injustice.

    Anagrams

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