核心畫面
One way to picture 'swell': something slowly fills out from inside and grows bigger and rounder — a ankle puffing up, a balloon filling, a sail bellying in the wind. From that one image of 'rounding out / rising up' the word spreads gently: bigger in number or amount, a sound growing fuller and louder, the heart filling with feeling, the sea rising in long rounded , a gentle rise of ground. The old American slang 'swell' (= great) comes from the same picture — a 'swell' was once a grand, puffed-up, fashionable person, so 'swell' came to mean fine and excellent.
可以想成： swell 是某樣東西從裡面慢慢撐起來、變得又大又圓——扭傷的腳踝腫起來、氣球被吹鼓、船帆被風吹得鼓鼓的…更多收起
可以想成： swell 是某樣東西從裡面慢慢撐起來、變得又大又圓——扭傷的腳踝腫起來、氣球被吹鼓、船帆被風吹得鼓鼓的。從這個「向外鼓、往上漲」的畫面，這個字溫和地往外長：數量變多、聲音變得更飽滿更大、心裡漲滿情緒、海面起伏成一道道圓圓的長浪、地面微微隆起。早期美式俚語的 swell（很棒）也來自同一個畫面——swell 本來指一個體面、神氣、打扮入時的人（像被吹得鼓鼓的那樣），於是 swell 就帶上了「很好、很棒」的意思。原始詞典資料24 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
swellverb詞源 1/swɛl/
- 1
To become larger, fuller, or rounder, or expand in size or shape, usually as a result of pressure from within.
- My ankles had swelled in the heat.
- O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention, A kingdom for a stage, princes to act And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
- 2
To cause to become bigger.
- Rains and dissolving snow swell the rivers in spring.
- 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.
- 3
To grow gradually in force or loudness.
- The organ music swelled.
- 4
To cause to grow gradually in force or loudness.
- It commenced with a slow crescendo, so irresistibly lugubrious that two of our dogs at once raised their heads and swelled their voices into a responsive tremolo, which may have been heard and appreciated by their distant relatives.
- 5
To raise to arrogance; to puff up; to inflate.
- to be swelled with pride or haughtiness
- 6
To be raised to arrogance.
- Why, here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock.
- […] you swell at the sight of tartan, as the bull is said to do at scarlet.
- 7
To be elated; to rise arrogantly.
- In all things else above our humble fate Your equal mind yet swells not into state, But like some mountain in those happy Isles Where in perpetual Spring young Nature smiles, Your greatnesse shows:
- 8
To be turgid, bombastic, or extravagant.
- swelling words a swelling style
另外 1 個記錄的用法
- 9
To protuberate; to bulge out.
- A cask swells in the middle.
swellnoun詞源 2/swɛl/
- 1
The act of swelling; increase in size.
- 2
A bulge or protuberance.
- 3
Increase of power in style, or of rhetorical force.
- Concentrated are his arguments, select and distinct and orderly his topics, ready and unfastidious his expressions, popular his allusions, plain his illustrations, easy the swell and subsidence of his periods […]
- 4
A long series of ocean waves, generally produced by wind, and lasting after the wind has ceased.
- the heave of a heavy ocean swell
- There was a great, smooth swell upon the sea.
- 5
entertainmentlifestylemusicA gradual crescendo followed by diminuendo.
- 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.
- 6
entertainmentlifestylemusicA device for controlling the volume of a pipe organ.
- 7
entertainmentlifestylemusicA division in a pipe organ, usually the largest enclosed division.
- 8
A hillock or similar raised area of terrain.
- Off on the crest of a swell a moving figure was seen now and then. "Antelope," said the hunters.
另外 4 個記錄的用法
- 9
geographygeologynatural-sciencesAn upward protrusion of strata from whose central region the beds dip quaquaversally at a low angle.
- 10
datedinformalA person who is stylish, fancy, or elegant.
- 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?
- He was dressed in a flashy style, not unlike what is popularly denominated a swell.
- 11
informalA person of high social standing; an important person.
- "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.
- “I,” said Binet, “once saw a piece called the ‘Gamin de Paris,’ in which there was the character of an old general that is really hit off to a T. He sets down a young swell, who had seduced a working girl, who at the end———”
- 12
The front brow of a saddle bow, connected in the tree by the two saddle bars to the cantle on the other end.
swelladj詞源 3/swɛl/
- 1
datedFashionable, like a swell or dandy.
- We pay the express, $5 a day our new agents are making and wearing the swellest clothes besides; old agents after one season make twice as much.
- 2
datedslangExcellent.
- ...you are my devoted friend too. You do more and work harder and oh shit I'd get maudlin about how damned swell you are. My god I'd like to see you... You're a hell of a good guy.
- Jeff swaggered over to Ned Beaumont, threw his left arm roughly around his shoulders, seized Ned Beaumont’s right hand with his right hand, and addressed the company jovially: “This is the swellest guy I ever skinned a knuckle on and I’ve skinned them on plenty.”
swelladv詞源 3/swɛl/
- 1
informalVery well.
- “That lousy ring wasn’t worth no grand. I did swell to get two centuries for it.”
- “[…] Last August, when I left The Walls, I figured I had every chance to start new. I got a job in Olathe, lived with my family, and stayed home nights. I was doing swell—”
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。