What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Swelled vs Selled - What's the difference?

swelled | selled |

As verbs the difference between swelled and selled

is that swelled is (swell) while selled is (nonstandard) (sell).

swelled

English

Verb

(head)
  • (swell)

  • 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

    * ----

    selled

    English

    Verb

    (head)
  • (nonstandard) (sell)

  • sell

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) sellen, from (etyl) , Icelandic selja.

    Verb

  • (intransitive) To transfer goods or provide services in exchange for money.
  • * Bible, (w) xix. 21
  • If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= A new prescription , passage=No sooner has a [synthetic] drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one. These “legal highs” are sold for the few months it takes the authorities to identify and ban them, and then the cycle begins again.}}
  • (ergative) To be sold.
  • To promote a particular viewpoint.
  • (slang) To trick, cheat, or manipulate someone.
  • * (Charles Dickens)
  • * {{quote-news, year=2011, date=January 12, author=Saj Chowdhury, work=BBC
  • , title= Liverpool 2-1 Liverpool , passage=Raul Meireles was the victim of the home side's hustling on this occasion giving the ball away to the impressive David Vaughan who slipped in Taylor-Fletcher. The striker sold Daniel Agger with the best dummy of the night before placing his shot past keeper Pepe Reina.}}
  • (professional wrestling, slang) To pretend that an opponent's blows or maneuvers are causing legitimate injury; to act.
  • Antonyms
    * buy
    Derived terms
    * sell-by date * sell-out * sell-outs * sell-through * sell down * sell down the river * sell ice to Eskimos * sell like hotcakes * sell one's soul * sell out * sell refrigerators to Eskimos * sell wolf tickets

    Quotations

    * To trick, or cheat someone. *

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An act of selling.
  • This is going to be a tough sell .
  • An easy task.
  • * 1922': What a '''sell for Lena! - (Katherine Mansfield), ''The Doll's House (Selected Stories, Oxford World's Classics paperback 2002, 354)
  • (colloquial, dated) An imposition, a cheat; a hoax.
  • * 1919 ,
  • "Of course a miracle may happen, and you may be a great painter, but you must confess the chances are a million to one against it. It'll be an awful sell if at the end you have to acknowledge you've made a hash of it."

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) selle, from (etyl) sella.

    Alternative forms

    * selle (obsolete)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) A seat or stool.
  • (Fairfax)
  • (archaic) A saddle.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , II.ii:
  • turning to that place, in which whyleare / He left his loftie steed with golden sell , / And goodly gorgeous barbes, him found not theare [...].