swell

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• intransitive verb To increase in size or volume as a result of internal pressure; expand.
• intransitive verb To increase in force, size, number, or degree.
• intransitive verb To grow in loudness or intensity.
• intransitive verb To bulge out, as a sail.
• intransitive verb To rise or extend above the surrounding level, as clouds.
• intransitive verb To rise in swells, as the sea.
• intransitive verb To be or become filled or puffed up, as with pride, arrogance, or anger.
• intransitive verb To rise from within.
• intransitive verb To cause to increase in volume, size, number, degree, or intensity.
• intransitive verb To fill with emotion.
• noun The act or process of swelling.
• noun The condition of being swollen.
• noun A swollen part; a bulge or protuberance.
• noun A long wave on water that moves continuously without breaking.
• noun A rise in the land; a rounded elevation.
• noun Informal One who is fashionably dressed or socially prominent.
• noun A crescendo followed by a gradual diminuendo.
• noun The sign indicating such a crescendo.
• noun A device on an instrument, such as an organ or harpsichord, for regulating volume.
• adjective Fashionably elegant; stylish.
• adjective Excellent; wonderful.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To grow in bulk; bulge; dilate or expand; increase in size or extent by addition of any kind; grow in volume, intensity, or force: literally or figuratively, and used in a great variety of applications.
• To belly, as sails; bulge out, as a cask in the middle; protuberate.
• To rise in altitude; rise above a given level.
• To be puffed up with some feeling; show outwardly elation or excitement; hence, to strut; look big: as, to swell with pride, anger, or rage.
• To rise and gather; well up.
• To increase the bulk, size, amount, or number of; cause to expand, dilate, or increase.
• To inflate; puff up; raise to arrogance.
• To increase gradually the intensity, force, or volume of: as, to swell a tone. See swell, n., 4.
• noun The act of swelling; augmentation in bulk; expansion; distention; increase in volume, intensity, number, force, etc.
• noun An elevation above a level, especially a gradual and even rise: as, a swell of land.
• noun A wave, especially when long and unbroken; collectively, the waves or fluctuations of the sea after a storm, often called ground-swell; billows; a surge: as, a heavy swell.
• noun In music: A gradual increase and following decrease in loudness or force; a crescendo combined with a diminuendo. Compare messa di voce.
• noun The sign ⟨ or ⟩, used to denote the above.
• noun A mechanical contrivance in the harpsichord and in both the pipe-organ and the reed-organ by which the loudness of the tones may be varied by opening or shutting the lid or set of blinds of a closed box, case, or chamber within which are the sounding strings, pipes, or vibrators.
• noun Same as swell-box, swell-keyboard, swell-organ, or swell-pedal. See also organ, 6.
• noun In a cannon, an enlargement near the muzzle: it is not present in guns as now made.
• noun In a gunstock, the enlarged and thickened part.
• noun In geology, an extensive area from whose central region the strata dip quaquaversally to a moderate amount, so as to give rise to a geologically and topographically peculiar type of structure.
• noun In coal-mining, a channel washed out or in some way eroded in a coal-seam, and afterward filled up with clay or sand. Also called, in some English coal-fields, a horse, and in others a want; sometimes also a horse-back, and in the South Wales coal-field a swine-back.
• noun A man of great claims to admiration; one of distinguished personality; hence, one who puts on such an appearance, or endeavors to appear important or distinguished; a dandy: as, a howling swell (a conspicuously great swell).
• noun In a stop-motion of a loom, a curved lever in the shuttle-box, which raises a catch out of engagement with the stop or stop-finger whenever the shuttle fairly enters the shuttle-box, but which, when the shuttle fails to enter, permits such engagement, thus bringing into action mechanism that stops the loom. Compare stop-motion.
• First-rate of its kind; hence, elegant; stylish.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb To increase the size, bulk, or dimensions of; to cause to rise, dilate, or increase.
• transitive verb To aggravate; to heighten.