Today's Word "Swell"
Published in Vocabulary
swell \swell\ (adjective) - (Slang) Today's word is a positive epithet, popular in the 30s and 40s, meaning, roughly "great, fine."
"Keith and Kelly indicate that they'd had a swell time at the swing party last night."
In 1724 today's adjective referred to someone swollen with pride, arrogant, but by the beginning of the 19th century, it simply meant "well-dressed, fashionable," following semantic shift of the noun, which by that time meant "a dandy, a distinguished person, a person of high social standing." This remained the meaning of the noun and adjective until the 20th century. In the late 1930's the meaning broadened to a slang expression for "great, fine" e.g. "She's a swell gal," where it has pretty much remained.
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