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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Somewhat tumid.
  2. adj. Becoming swollen; swelling.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Swelling; tumefying; forming into a tumor; intumescent.
  2. In botany, slightly tumid or swollen.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. swollen or distended with fluid, as of erectile tissue.
  2. adj. inflated or overblown

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Slightly tumid; swollen, as certain moss capsules.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. abnormally distended especially by fluids or gas

Etymologies

  1. Latin tumēscēns, tumēscent-, present participle of tumēscere, to begin to swell, inchoative of tumēre, to swell; see teuə- in Indo-European roots.

Examples

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Comments

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  • chained_bear Certainly a candidate for reesetee's list "Worse Than They Sound," if it isn't already there in some variant (such as tumescence). Mar 6, 2008

‘tumescent’ has been looked up 2445 times, loved by 3 people, added to 50 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 13.