Definition of "welt"

When she saw, on the back and shoulders of the child, great welts and calloused spots, ineffaceable marks of the system under which she had grown up thus far, her heart became pitiful within her.

1851 June – 1852 April, Harriet Beecher Stowe, chapter XX, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly, volume II, Boston, Mass.: John P[unchard] Jewett & Company; Cleveland, Oh.: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, published 20 March 1852

[…] I am sure of one thing—scars are plenty enough in Germany, among the young men; and very grim ones they are, too. They crisscross the face in angry red welts, and are permanent and ineffaceable.

1880, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter VII, in A Tramp Abroad; […], Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company; London: Chatto & Windus

She was nearly four feet long, with a large welt on her shell, which was encrusted with ancient-looking barnacles.

2014, Elizabeth Kolbert, chapter 7, in The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Henry Holt and Company

[The] Mantle of this Order was of Skie-coloured Damask, having broad welt of Gold embroidered on the Collar, and [...]

1672, Elias Ashmole, The institution, laws & ceremonies of the most noble Order of the Garter, chapter III, section 1

[…] surmounted of another Azure: but in my Judgment, it rather represents a Hem, or Welt of a Belt, or an Edg of Silver, than two Belts one upon another; which the Bend properly signifie […]

1688, Randle Holme, The academy of armory, book 1, chapter IV, "Of the Bend divers ways"

Therefore this may be taken for an Observation, that an edg, or hem, or welt, only runs on the sides of the Ordinary; but the Border invirons, or goeth clear round the same, […]

1688, Randle Holme, The academy of armory, book 1, chapter IV, "Of the Bend divers ways"

“The neighborhood is officially called Mid-City, but it is often referred to as Crenshaw. The area is wide and bright, a grid of small streets crisscrossed with boulevards and the welt of the I-10 freeway running along its southern edge.”

2018, Susan Orlean, chapter 6, in The Library Book

Well, gentlemen, I was standing with her just inside the window, in all innocence, as God is my judge, when he rushed like a madman into the room, called her the vilest name that a man could use to a woman, and welted her across the face with the stick he had in his hand.

1904 September, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange”, in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., published February 1905

"Cover your scut, or I'll welt the skin off it."

1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, page 113