sweltering
Americanadjective
-
suffering oppressive heat.
-
characterized by oppressive heat; sultry.
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of sweltering
Explanation
Sweltering means uncomfortably hot. Walking home from work on a sweltering day will leave you sweating. A sweltering summer afternoon might cause you to turn on the air conditioning in your apartment or take a cool shower. To be sweltering is more than merely being hot — it's the kind of damp, intense heat that sends everyone to the pool or beach for some relief. The verb swelter came first, from the now obsolete word swelten, "be faint from heat," rooted in the Old English sweltan, "to die or perish."
Vocabulary lists containing sweltering
The Sweltering Words of Summer
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The Glass Castle
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Term-ometer: Synonyms for "Hot"
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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.
But that’s where one frightened audience member wound up in 1980 after seeing “Friday the 13th” in a sweltering Hollywood theater.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 19, 2026
In Davis, Calif., the transformer on my block repeatedly blew up during heat waves, leaving us sweltering, sometimes for days at a time.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
On a sweltering Saturday, around 100 people gathered in Culver City for a rally and march to deliver a message to several major media companies: Help us protect our democracy.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2026
In the sweltering heat, fellow fish vendor Faraba Fatty stated bluntly that "without electricity, we have a very bad life".
From Barron's ● Sep. 17, 2026
One sweltering summer afternoon, I attended a Harlem street rally which contained a lot of these teen-agers in the crowd.
From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
