welter
pronunciation
How to pronounce welter in British English:
UK [ˈweltə(r)]
How to pronounce welter in American English:
US [ˈwɛltɚ]
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- Noun:
- a confused multitude of things
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- Verb:
- toss, roll, or rise and fall in an uncontrolled way
- roll around, "pigs were wallowing in the mud"
- be immersed in
Word Origin
- welter
- welter: [13] Welter was originally a verb, meaning ‘roll about’ (borrowed probably from Middle Dutch welteren, it came ultimately from the Germanic base *wal-, *wel- ‘roll’, source also of English wallet, wallow, waltz, etc, and is distantly related to English involve, revolve, etc). It was first used as a noun in the 16th century, in the sense ‘confusion, turmoil’, but the modern sense ‘confused mass, jumble’ did not emerge fully until the mid 19th century.The welter of welter-weight [19], which originally meant ‘heavyweight horseman or boxer’, may be the same word, but it is perhaps more likely to have been derived from the verb welt in the sense ‘hit, thrash’. This originally meant ‘provide a shoe with a welt or strip of leather’, and was derived from the noun welt [15], a word of uncertain origin.=> involve, revolve, volume, wallow, waltz, weld, well
- welter (v.)
- "to roll or twist," early 14c., from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German welteren "to roll," from Proto-Germanic *waltijan (cognates: Old English wieltan, Old Norse velta, Old High German walzan "to turn, revolve," German wälzen "to roll," Gothic waltjan "to roll"), from PIE root *wel- (3) "to turn, revolve" (see volvox). Related: Weltered; weltering.
- welter (n.)
- 1590s, "confusion," from welter (v.). The meaning "confused mass" is first recorded 1851.
Example
- 1. In the latest welter of housing data , some have seen green shoots .
- 2. In trade ( both goods and services ) , a welter of impediments persist .
- 3. The inevitable consequence will be a welter of bad loans .
- 4. That way you can consult key emails when you need them without opening a welter of overlapping windows .
- 5. Even so , the government has created a welter of limits on expression , particularly on political and security topics .