- present participle of swelter.
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.
Their plans for a sweltering 1 p.m. start Saturday against the Braves were first reported by The Athletic.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026
But when Clément Delangue and Julien Chaumond first arrived at the Manhattan offices of venture capital fund Betaworks for its “BotCamp” startup program in the sweltering summer of 2016, their goal was more modest.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026
Energy bills may have been a long way from our minds through the sweltering summer.
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2026
It comes amid a sweltering summer that’s been characterized by high nighttime temperatures and muggy conditions, especially along the Southern California coast, due to unusually warm ocean waters.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 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
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.
