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
-
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
-
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:
A welter of memoirs and biographies have traced their colorful lives as well as their relationships with one another and with their hot-tempered father, David.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 31, 2026
Of the many double-edged gifts bestowed upon us by the streaming service gods, the welter of celebrity documentaries is perhaps the most remarkable.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2025
Being an MP, while a privilege, isn't easy, splitting your life between two places, the welter of public scrutiny and being subject to the vagaries of your party's political fortunes.
From BBC ● Mar. 27, 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
I can’t start to describe for you my welter of emotions.
From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey
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
He has no imagination at all—or, what is the same thing, an imagination which welters in impotence, far below the level of the emotions which it ought to overrule.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 by Various
Blind lake of Sansculottism welters stagnant through the King's Chateau, for the space of three hours.
From The French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle
And he now welters in a debtor's prison, with few save his old faithful Daddy Bob for friends.
From Our World, Or, the Slaveholder's Daughter by F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
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
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
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
Then everything weltered in on her at once—waves, wreckage, as of a world after flood.
From Shadows of Flames A Novel by Amélie Rives
Rangely weltered through the crowd to Mrs. Gore and asked about the letter.
From The Puritans by Arlo Bates
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
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
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
To see a man, bold, confident, assured of success, in one moment converted into a sodden and convulsive mass, weltering upon the lawn—it was catastrophic.
From The Gay Adventure A Romance by Richard Bird
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