Definition of "sweal"

sweal

/swiːl/

verb
third-person singular simple present sweals, present participle swealing, simple past and past participle swealed
1. (intransitive) To burn slowly.
2. (intransitive) To melt and run down, as the tallow of a candle; waste away without feeding the flame.
  Quotations
  [M]ind ye dinna let the candle sweal as ye gang alang the wainscot parlour, and haud a' the house scouring to get out the grease again.
  1816, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter V, in Tales of My Landlord, […], volume II (Old Mortality), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for William Blackwood, […]; London: John Murray, […], page 104
3. (transitive) To singe; scorch; dress (as a hog) with burning or singeing.
4. (transitive, dialectal) To consume with fire; burn.
5. (transitive, dialectal) To make disappear; cause to waste away; diminish; reduce.
  Quotations
  "He thinks it's only a tumour!" cried Annie to her mother. "And he can sweal it away."
  1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Baxter Dawes”, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], part II, page 377