dwell
/dwɛl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.57 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
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).
Example Sentences
- "I am fully resolved to go dwell in another house."
- "The poor man dwells in a humble cottage near the hall where the lord of the domain resides."
- "Well, since my baby left me, Well, I found a new place to dwell. Well, it's down at the end of Lonely Street At Heartbreak Hotel."
- "Stop dwelling on the past!"
- "So it came about that long ere Ailie reached home it was on young Heriotside that her mind dwelled, and it was the love of him that made her eyes glow and her cheeks redden."
- "Jeeves: Foreign travel often liberates emotions best kept in check, sir. The air of North America is notoriously stimulating in this regard, as witness the regrettable behavior of its inhabitants in 1776. B. Wooster: Hm? What happened in 1776, Jeeves? Jeeves: I prefer not to dwell on it, if it's convenient to you, sir."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dʰwel-der. Proto-Germanic *dwalaz Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Germanic *-janą Proto-Germanic *dwaljaną Proto-West Germanic *dwalljan Old English dwellan ▲ Old Norse dveljainflu. Middle English dwellen English dwell From Middle English dwellen (“delay, live, remain, persist”), from Old English dwellan (“to mislead, deceive; be led into error, stray”), from Proto-Germanic *dwaljaną (“to hold up, delay; hesitate”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰwelH- (“to whirl, swirl, blur, obfuscate”), which is cognate with Old Norse dvelja and related to Proto-Germanic *dwelaną (“to go astray”), which underwent semantic change in its descendants. Cognates include Danish dvæle (“to linger, dwell”) and Swedish dväljas (“to dwell, reside”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: dwellen, dwellan, *dwaljaną, *dʰwelH-