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:
This is the view from downstream, looking up at the house and its welter of projecting terraces.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
Amid a welter of rumours, the general staff was forced to deny reports that Gen Syrskyi was about to be – or even had already been – sacked.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 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
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
He lay in a welter of fine dust that had drifted into this dark, secret space over the years.
From "The House of the Scorpion" by Nancy Farmer
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
The last lingering light welters on the ground and in the water.
From Under Fire: the story of a squad by Fitzwater Wray
Blind lake of Sansculottism welters stagnant through the King's Chateau, for the space of three hours.
From The French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle
A Western writer "spreads himself" at the expense of a rival who "welters" in "gush" or "slops over" too profusely.
From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 20, September, 1877. by Various
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
And my thoughts were as weltered as the scene before me.
From Lone Star Planet by H. Beam Piper
It was in the beginning of August, and the Temple weltered in sultry days and calm nights.
From Mike Fletcher A Novel by George (George Augustus) Moore
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
It seemed ages since we had last tramped the weltering decks, stamping heavily in our big sea-boots for warmth, or crouching in odd corners to shelter from the driven spray, the bitter wind and rain.
From The Brassbounder A Tale of the Sea by David W. Bone
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.
