Other forms: sweltering
To swelter is to suffer in oppressive heat. Sweltering in the sun, a sweltering afternoon, swelter in the tent.
It is about being trapped in the heat rather than merely feeling it, so a sweltering room is worse than a hot beach. Humidity is what makes heat unbearable, since sweat cannot evaporate. The word comes from an Old English verb meaning to die.
1verbswelterTo suffer in oppressive heat.
“Passengers sweltered on the crowded train when the air conditioning broke.”
swelter is a suffering in heat.
Middle English swelteren is a frequentative of swelten, to faint or die, from Old English sweltan, to die.
Middle English
swelteren
English, today
swelter
From Middle English swelteren, frequentative form of Middle English swelten (“to die; faint”), from Old English sweltan (“to die”), from Proto-West Germanic sweltan, from Proto-Germanic sweltaną (“to die”), from Proto-Indo-European swel- (“to smolder; burn”), equivalent to swelt + er.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire