welter
1 Americanverb (used without object)
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welters,
present (3rd person singular)
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weltered,
past participle, past
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weltering
present participle
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to roll, toss, or heave, as waves or the sea.
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to roll, writhe, or tumble about; wallow, as animals (often followed byabout ).
pigs weltering about happily in the mud.
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to lie bathed in or be drenched in something, especially blood.
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to become deeply or extensively involved, associated, entangled, etc..
to welter in setbacks, confusion, and despair.
noun
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a confused mass; a jumble or muddle.
a welter of anxious faces.
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a state of commotion, turmoil, or upheaval.
the welter that followed the surprise attack.
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a rolling, tossing, or tumbling about, as or as if by the sea, waves, or wind.
They found the shore through the mighty welter.
noun
adjective
verb
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to roll about, writhe, or wallow
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(esp of the sea) to surge, heave, or toss
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to lie drenched in a liquid, esp blood
noun
-
a rolling motion, as of the sea
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a confused mass; jumble
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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weltersimple
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welterssimple
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have welteredperfect
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has welteredperfect
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am welteringprogressive
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are welteringprogressive
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is welteringprogressive
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have been welteringperfect progressive
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has been welteringperfect progressive
Past
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welteredsimple
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had welteredperfect
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was welteringprogressive
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were welteringprogressive
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had been welteringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of welter1
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English welteren, welten “tumble, fall over; writhe,” Old English wiltan, weltan “roll”; cognate with Middle Dutch welteren, Low German weltern “to roll”
Origin of welter2
First recorded in 1785–95; of uncertain origin; perhaps from welt in the sense “to beat soundly” + -er 1, or welter 1 in the sense “a rolling or tossing about”
Explanation
Use the noun welter to describe an enormous, messy pile, like the jumble of papers, coffee mugs, pens, and food wrappers on the desk of the messiest person in the office. Welter can also be a verb — the items in the pile on the messy desk welter every time someone tries to pull something out. This means they roll and get tossed around. Maybe the person isn't as messy as you think. Possibly his projects keep him so weltered — meaning "deeply involved" — that he doesn't have the time or energy to deal with the mess.
Vocabulary lists containing welter
Fahrenheit 451
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A Long Walk to Water
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Oedipus the King
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In the welter of ideas and insights, it can be tricky for the reader to follow.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 19, 2025
But the 2014 YouTube video set off a welter of “fire noodle challenges” around the world, launching Buldak into viral fame.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 5, 2024
Among a welter of preliminary deals was an actual contract between Seoul’s state-run Korea National Oil Corp. and Saudi Arabia’s state-run energy giant Saudi Aramco.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 26, 2023
But a welter of economic numbers will barrel into the mix today too - chief among them the September retail sales release, but also industrial output data and an October reading on U.S. housing.
From Reuters ● Oct. 17, 2023
He had too much to think about and felt lost in the bewildering welter of his thoughts.
From "A Single Shard" by Linda Sue Park
Intimations of jazz, Balinese gamelan, African drumming and Japanese music floated from welters of rapid passagework.
From New York Times ● Jan. 8, 2010
Carole Bolsey’s paintings are welters of vivid hues from which recognizable forms — boats, a horse — emerge.
From Washington Post
Dear George! at first he just couldn't abide cats; but now, why now he's just all for cats; he fairly welters in cats.
From The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories by Mark Twain
In the underworld from which Gideon had sprung—the underworld where welters the overwhelming mass of the human race—there are three main types.
From Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise by David Graham Phillips
The wind is as iron that rings, The foam-heads loosen and flee; It swells and welters and swings, The pulse of the tide of the sea.
From Poems & Ballads (First Series) by Algernon Charles Swinburne
One year ago, on "the tenth day of the tenth month," there was a relatively stable northern Government at Peking, and the southern Government at Canton weltered in the doldrums of impotence.
From Time Magazine Archive
For 48 hours the West weltered in the confusion of factlessness: the air waves and the news columns were splashed with words like "purge" and "shake-up."
From Time Magazine Archive
With each successive year since the fall of the Empire, China has weltered ever deeper in the morass of civil war.
From Time Magazine Archive
The mob had weltered and howled ineffectually around the house for some half-hour.
From Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face by Charles Kingsley
All through these wretched months, Lem Lutts had weltered in jail.
From The Red Debt Echoes from Kentucky by Everett MacDonald
The echo, here, is of “Citizen Kane,” where the camera cranes over a rooftop and down through a skylight, in a weltering storm.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 19, 2015
Some people ride out their lives weltering in a vivid spiritual experience regarding which they scarcely ever speak.
From Slate ● Sep. 11, 2015
Wife At Nantasket Beach, Mass., a bather thought he saw his wife weltering in the surf, frantically summoned lifeguards, who plunged in, rescued a beer keg.
From Time Magazine Archive
Spain was weltering last week in a revolution which experts had to certify as absolutely Grade A. Its authentic qualities of mass upheaval reduced to secondary stature both the government leaders and the revolutionary generals.
From Time Magazine Archive
The waters did, indeed, look black as we saw them weltering on through the piny gloom far below us.
From Wives and Widows; or The Broken Life by Ann S. (Ann Sophia) Stephens
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
