Definition of "swole"

(chiefly African-American Vernacular, dialectal) Swollen, enlarged.  quotations

1. (slang) Of a person: having large, well-developed muscles; muscular.  quotations

   Quotations

   • I will find something to slit my throat or hang some sheets from the ceiling or make one of these big, swole niggaz in here so mad at me that they break my neck.

     2005, Kalisha Buckhanon, “February 11, 1990”, in Upstate, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press

   • "That nigga lucky he still breathing right now, yo. I should've sent some of my niggas from Bunche Place over there to take care of his swole ass," Scoot said.

     2011, Nikki Turner, “Who’s Fooling Whom?”, in A Woman’s Work: Street Chronicles (Nikki Turner Presents), New York, N.Y.: One World Trade Paperbacks, Ballantine Books

   • It's the athletes who showed me how to get "swole." I found a series of online videos by this megaripped dude who taught me how to fine-tune my body and turn it into a machine. [...] It worked; I got swole.

     2015, Nicole Winters, chapter 1, in The Jock and the Fat Chick, New York, N.Y.: Harper Teen, HarperCollins

2. (slang) Of a person: erect; having an erection of the penis; sexually aroused, hard.  quotations

   Quotations

   • You'd like him a lot. Big and all swole up thinking about you. What kind of panties you got on, Olive?

     1978, Bruce Eliot [pseudonym; Edward Field and Neil Derrick], The Potency Clinic, New York, N.Y.: Bleecker Street Press

(figuratively)

1. Full (of something); bursting with.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • Sourdough went on to explain the occasion for the festivity. "The Popplewells are so swole with pride now they got the upstairs house finished that they got to give a house-warmin'."

     1925, Dorothy Scarborough, The Wind, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, page 119

   • Honey, I'm all swole up with pride. Here's the horrible part. You're going to have to stay here and meet Norman.

     1951, Jean Kerr, Eleanor Brooke, King of Hearts, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., page 54

   • Sweating and red on the dance floor / without meat hooks aimed at my skin, / except for one woman, I ducked / into a room swole with men in work boots.

     2009, Tara Betts, “Don't Ask, Just Know”, in Arc and Hue, Detroit, M.I.: Willow Books, page 73

   • It was a place she'd heard about only in story — a trapper country where the waters were swole with trout and beaver, and where the L'Etangs fatted and thrived.

     2013, Bill Cheng, Southern Cross the Dog, London: Picador, published 2014, page 315

2. Extremely proud or arrogant.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • Strangers weren't sure she was drunk, but I knew. Granny got braggish when drunk. She got swole up about herself. When she took to bragging on her thoughts and notions it was time to jump from the station wagon and walk or brace for a crash.

     2001, Daniel Woodrell, The Death of Sweet Mister: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Marian Wood Books, page 146

   • Just shut your hole and listen, swole-headed prick.

     2008, David Fuller, Sweetsmoke, London: Abacus, page 232

   • I'm still grinning like a fool when I walk out. I'm so swole with my own foresight that it takes me a minute to realize that C's gone.

     2022, Namwali Serpell, The Furrows: An Elegy, London, New York, N.Y.: Hogarth, page 153

3. (usually followed by up) Upset; experiencing strong negative emotion.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • Every once in a while, maybe twice a year, Bessie gets all galled under the britchin' about something [...] Usually over some triflin' little thing that don't amount to a hill of beans, like I won't wash my feet or something, but she gets all swole up like a snakebit pup and says she's leavin' me for good this time.

     1956, Charles Williams, chapter 4, in The Diamond Bikini (Gold Medal Books; s607), Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications; republished [New York, N.Y.]: Open Road Media, 2012,

   • She could pitch drunks out in the street like horseshoes and before then I'd never thought of her in a lovely way, she being big and thick, but now I saw her in Pugh's office peeling off her Wranglers and showing her dimpled thighs and I just got all swole up with lonesome.

     2006, Alex Taylor, “The Name of the Nearest River”, in American Short Fiction, Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, page 34; republished in The Name of the Nearest River: Stories (The Linda Bruckheimer Series in Kentucky Literature), Louisville, Ky.: Sarabande Books, 2010, page 6

   • "My mother said I can stay here as long as I want to," I said, irking the shit outta him. He got swole just like I knew he would.

     2012, Noire, Natural Born Liar: The Misadventures of Mink LaRue, New York, N.Y.: Dafina Books, page 233

   • Of course, they was all swole up about it. Aint no self-repect'n smithy or ranch hand would be caught dead do'n housework.

     2012, Amos Walker, chapter 22, in Justice and the Heart, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, page 125

(African-American Vernacular, Southern US, also in other English varieties in the simple past tense until early 20th c.) simple past and past participle of swell: swelled; swollen.  quotations  examples