Link Centre Dictionary

dwell

UK/dwɛl/ US/ˈdwɛl/ fairly common literary

verb

1.
2.

originate (in)

  • “The problems dwell in the social injustices in this country”
Synonyms
3.

make one''s home or live in

  • “She resides officially in Iceland”
  • “I live in a 200-year old house”
  • “These people inhabited all the islands that are now deserted”
  • “The plains are sparsely populated”
Synonyms
4.

come back to

  • “Don”
  • “;”
Synonyms

Origin

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.

Phrases

  • dwell on
  • dwell time
  • dwell upon

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

See also

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.