Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To live as a resident; reside.
- v. To exist in a given place or state: dwell in joy.
- v. To fasten one's attention: kept dwelling on what went wrong. See Synonyms at brood.
- v. To speak or write at length; expatiate: dwelt on the need to trim the budget.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To linger; delay; continue; stay; remain.
- To abide as a permanent resident; reside; have abode or habitation permanently or for some time.
- To live; be; exist: without reference to place.
- To continue on; occupy a long time with; speak or write about at great length or with great fullness: as, to dwell on a note in music; to dwell upon a subject.
- Synonyms Abide, Sojourn, Continue, etc. See abide.
- To inhabit.
- To place as an inhabitant; plant.
- n. In printing, the brief continuation of pressure in the taking of an impression on a hand-press or an Adams press, supposed to set or fasten the ink more firmly in the paper.
- n. An automatic pause in the action of one part of a machine to enable another part to complete its work; specifically, in a sheet-metal drawing-press, a pause in the motion of one die to enable another to continue its work, or a pause in the motion of the two dies to enhance the effect of their combined pressure. It is also utilized to enable one die to serve as a binding-clamp, holding the blank firmly, while another die draws it into the required shape. A dwell can be produced by the use of a cam or by the omission of some of the teeth of a gear.
Wiktionary
- n. engineering A period of time in which a system or component remains in a given state.
- n. engineering A brief pause in the motion of part of a mechanism to allow an operation to be completed.
- n. electrical engineering A planned delay in a timed control program.
- n. automotive In a petrol engine, the period of time the ignition points are closed to let current flow through the ignition coil in between each spark. This is measured as an angle in degrees around the camshaft in the distributor which controls the points, for example in a 4-cylinder engine it might be 55° (spark at 90° intervals, points closed for 55° between each).
- v. intransitive, now literary To live; to reside.
- v. intransitive To linger (on) a particular thought, idea etc.; to remain fixated (on).
- v. intransitive, engineering To be in a given state.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To delay; to linger.
- v. To abide; to remain; to continue.
- v. To abide as a permanent resident, or for a time; to live in a place; to reside.
- v. rare To inhabit.
WordNet 3.0
- v. come back to
- v. think moodily or anxiously about something
- v. inhabit or live in; be an inhabitant of
- v. originate (in)
- v. exist or be situated within
Etymologies
- From Old Norse dvelja to Old English dwellan. Cognates include Danish dvæle and Swedish dväljas. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English dwellen, from Old English dwellan, to mislead, delay, dwell. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I. iii.156 (129,8) [dwell in my necessity] To _dwell_ seems in this place to mean the same as to _continue_.”
“KING: As the U.S. footprint in Iraq shrinks, the Army hopes to guarantee troops 30 months of what it calls dwell time between deployments.”
“I've read and enjoyed all thirteen of Carroll's novels, and this one is going right on the shelf with the others, and will occupy the same oft-visited part of my mental landscape wherein dwell his other magical books.”
“The place in which they do dwell is one in which the working poor, clothed in the stigmatizing uniforms of their menial trades, interrogated, tested, monitored, and policed, trade their civil rights-at the very least, their right to privacy and to free speech-for a not quite subsistence wage.”
“Today, it is another kind of crusade, to protect the sacred places of the earth wherein dwell freedom and justice, and good faith and mercy, and humane and Christian civilization.”
“I would fain dwell on each of these honored names, but must pass on to others no less worthy of honor.”
Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893
“Tabernacle" for dwell is used to mark that, though still on the earth, they in spirit are hidden”
“For the last several years, our Armed Forces have been plagued by a lack of what is known as dwell time -- the amount of time Soldiers have at home with their families between deployments.”
Richard Allen Smith: Afghanistan: A Broken Promise to Military Families
“Clearly, by 'dwelling', Heidegger does not only mean living somewhere, rather than nowhere: to dwell is to live somewhere, but in a certain way.”
“In effect, to dwell is to 'remain at peace' through freeing or sparing, and then caring for and preserving, things.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘dwell’.
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RELI - Genesis
Protagonists and relevant words in the Book of Creation (Source: King James Bible)
Laban, circumcise, beget, Esau, Rebekah, speckle, Sodom, Pharaoh, Canaanite, Canaan, Jacob, Lot and 1286 more...
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RELI - words with Biblical connotations
Words in the Bible evoking biblical stories or with special spiritual meaning. Proper names have been reduced to the minimum.
ark, judgement, holy, saint, baptism, spirit, love, eternal, altar, balsam, covenant, flood and 1115 more...
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HKI
hearth, hearthstone, fireside, snug, nest, dwell, nido, plush, fireplace, glow, ember, nook and 8 more...
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lost in translation
As a native Spanish speaker, I always found it easy to find words that were missing in the English language that conveyed the precise meaning I cared for in Spanish. In undertaking a writing projec...
surreptitious, elusive, nondescript, demeanor, mannerisms, nonsensical, numb, obfuscate, pervaded, preemptive, stagnate, resilient and 5 more...
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Well
well, wells, swells, hot-well, well-being, wellborn, wellaway, wellness, Ida Bell Wells, H.G. Wells, Henry Wells, that's all well a... and 54 more...
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ChortleGiggleSnort
Significant Words- Guiding you on your path to Snazzibility
flimsy, feeble, ranting, ramble, narky, snazzy, yoghurt, bulbous, pustule, globulous, geranium, megalomaniac and 521 more...
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strangelyrouge's Words
glockenspiel, gewgaw, jetsam, flotsam, gripe, grab, wench, whilst, betwixt, hither, thither, yonder and 1034 more...
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Vocabulary Words
words to reference while writing something
cohesive, epitome, tempered, imply, prudent, sundry, sagest, agitation, giddy, disposition, inclination, gracious and 114 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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kringlan's Words
fecund, riposte, nebbish, nonpareil, deign, eschew, imbroglio, spelunking, fop, foofaraw, tundra, talon and 128 more...
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zanshin's Words
gargoyle, ennui, paradigm, aardvark, verisimilitude, ghoti, tenacity, nescience, guillemet, squonk, maven, moxie and 210 more...
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theastic's Words
cellar, stalemate, wrought, opal, tyrant, squelch, squab, linen, tartan, paisley, scope, siren and 395 more...
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beatricks's Words
tremendous, naiad, thrush, samsara, thronging, nascent, broom, aristeia, streak, susurrant, reverberate, resistentialism and 352 more...
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Scriptie: The Return of the King
i can't carry it ..., at the end of all..., it's done, reach, eagles, veil, grass, water, cream, strawberries, barley, summer and 200 more...
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DreamieGrl's Words
integral, serendipidy, cordial, interesting, crucial, placate, superfluous, supercilious, scintillating, lush, tryst, mythical and 111 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, D
dodecahedron, din, diglyceride, dysphotopsia, decoction, deboss, diatonic, dithyramb, divagate, discalced, dishdasha, daft and 281 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for dwell.

Telofy According to OED:
dwale, dwalm/dwam, dwang, dwarf, dway-berry, dweeb, dwele, dwell, dwelth, dweomercræft, dwere, (dwerg), dwild, dwile, dwindle, dwine (plus related terms) Sep 25, 2009
reesetee Dwarf! But I think that count doesn't include slang like dweeb. May 21, 2007
sonofgroucho What's the third one? May 21, 2007
zanshin There are only three words in the English language (I believe) that start with dw. Dwell is but one. Dec 12, 2006