forswollen

English

Etymology

From Middle English forswollen, for-swollen, forswellen, equivalent to for- + swollen.

Adjective

forswollen (comparative more forswollen, superlative most forswollen)

  1. (obsolete) Excessively swollen; (figuratively) puffed up with pride; boastful; enraged.
    • mid-1400s, John Conlee (ed.), Prose Merlin, Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1998, “The Tournament at Logres; King Lot and his Sons; and Morgan and Gyomar,” p. 285, line 315,
      “Ha, boyes!”" quod the kynge, “thow art fell and forswollen. []
    • 1567, Arthur Golding, transl., The XV Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, entytuled Metamorphosis, Book 1:
      Who tother day wyth arrowes kéene, haue nayled to the ground,
      The serpent Python so forswolne, whose filthie wombe did hide
      So many acres of the grounde in which he did abide.
    • 1595, Barnabe Barnes, Sonnet 57 in A Divine Centurie of Spirituall Sonnets, London, John Windet,
      [] then I wreake
      My wrath on Sathan, and vpon his head
      Mee thinkes (like Michaell or Saint George) I treade:
      Whilst hee that earst against the Sunne did beake
      His foreswolne poysonous bulke, doth vanquishd lie
      In his owne filth:
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