swole

comparative swoler · superlative swolest · alternative swoll

1. dialectalchiefly African-American VernacularSwollen, enlarged.

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

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

   5 more examples

   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.

   1929 May, Harry G. Huse, “The One Big Union”, in The Frontier: A Magazine of the Northwest, volume IX, number 4, page 338

   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.

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

   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.

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

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

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

   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?

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

   1. dialectalslangchiefly African-American VernacularOf a person: having large, well-developed muscles; muscular.

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

      3 more examples

      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.

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

      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

      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.

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

      Synonyms: brawny, buff, able-bodied, athletic, Atlantean, beefy, beefed out, brawny

   2. dialectalslangchiefly African-American VernacularOf a person: erect; having an erection of the penis; sexually aroused, hard.

      her titties got me swole.

      1 more example

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

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

      Synonyms: erect, bricked up

2. figurativelyFull (of something); bursting with.

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

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

   3 more examples

   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'."

   1925, Dorothy Scarborough, The Wind, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, page 119

   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.

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

   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.

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

3. figurativelyExtremely proud or arrogant.

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

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

   2 more examples

   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.

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

   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.

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

4. figurativelyusuallyUpset; experiencing strong negative emotion.

   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.

   2012, Amos Walker, chapter 22, in Justice and the Heart, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 125

   3 more examples

   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.

   1956, Charles Williams, chapter 4, in The Diamond Bikini (Gold Medal Books; s607), Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, →OCLC; republished [New York, N.Y.]: Open Road Media, 2012, →ISBN

   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.

   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

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

alternative swoll

1. Southern USalsoparticiplepastAfrican-American Vernacularsimple past and past participle of swell: swelled; swollen.

   His arm just swole up.

   5 more examples

   I ate until my belly had swole.

   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.

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

   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.

   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

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

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

   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.

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