Sweal

//swiːl// verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To burn slowly. intransitive
  2. 2
    To melt and run down, as the tallow of a candle; waste away without feeding the flame. intransitive

    "[M]ind ye dinna let the candle sweal as ye gang alang the wainscot parlour, and haud a' the house scouring to get out the grease again."

  3. 3
    To singe; scorch; dress (as a hog) with burning or singeing. transitive
  4. 4
    To consume with fire; burn. dialectal, transitive
  5. 5
    To make disappear; cause to waste away; diminish; reduce. dialectal, transitive

    ""He thinks it's only a tumour!" cried Annie to her mother. "And he can sweal it away.""

Synonyms

All synonyms
go leftgo southgo wrongsufferworsen

Example

More examples

"[M]ind ye dinna let the candle sweal as ye gang alang the wainscot parlour, and haud a' the house scouring to get out the grease again."

Etymology

From Middle English swelen, from Old English swelan (“to burn, be burnt up, inflame”) (compare Old English swǣlan (“to burn”)), from Proto-West Germanic *swelan, from Proto-Germanic *swelaną (“to smoulder, burn slowly, create a burningly cold sensation”), from Proto-Indo-European *swel- (“to shine, warm, smoulder, burn”). Cognate with Dutch zwelen (“to smoulder”), Low German swelen (“to smoulder”), German schwelen (“to smoulder”), Icelandic svala (“to cool”). Related to swelter.

Related phrases

waste away

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.