Noun

(-)

Waves that break on an ocean shoreline.

* 1883 ,

...perhaps it was the look of the island, with its gray, melancholy woods, and wild stone spires, and the surf that we could both see and hear foaming and thundering on the steep beach...

* 1898 , , (Moonfleet) Chapter 5

'But when the surf fell enough for the boats to get ashore, and Greening held a lantern for me to jump down into the passage, after we had got the side out of the tomb, the first thing the light fell on at the bottom was a white face turned skyward.

* {{quote-book

, page=12 , year=1900 , author=Joseph Grinnell , title=Birds of the Kotzebue Sound Region, Alaska citation , passage=It was alone, nervously alighting and flying short distances along the surf .}}

* {{quote-book

, page=248 , year=1941 , author=Raymond Russell Camp , title=Fishing the Surf citation , passage=In most instances the inshore holes or pockets along the surf do not produce as well as the cuts or sloughs between sand bars.}}

* {{quote-book

, page=181 , year=1963 , author=Vlad Evanoff , title=Spin Fishing citation , passage=Snook are found in rivers, canals, inlets and along the surf , especially around sand bars, tidal rips, jetties, bridges and piers.}}

(UK, dialect) The bottom of a drain.

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!