swole

adjective

ˈswōl

informal : extremely muscular : having a physique enhanced by bodybuilding exercises

Mark Wahlberg's swole body should be motivation to hit the gym—at least until you quit your New Year's resolution in 3 weeks …—

TMZ

—often used with get

If you don't take a photo of yourself after you've spent at least 45 minutes trying to get swole, did you even work out?—

Hope Schreiber

Did you know?

If someone said you were swole, would you know how to respond? If you’re unfamiliar with the word, you might think your face is swollen or check yourself for signs of puffiness. If you know the word, however, you’d know you’re in fact looking quite fit and muscular and might respond with a simple “Thank you for noticing.” Often used on social media, swole has come to be a complimentary term for those with a physique enhanced by weightlifting and bodybuilding exercises. The word isn’t exactly new—swole goes back to Middle English as a past tense and past participle of swell meaning “to enlarge,” “to bulge,” or “to puff out” (literally and figuratively). In the late 1980s the sense of “having well-defined muscles” emerged as a regional variant of swollen in African American English. Rapper Ice-T used the adjective in his 1991 song “The Tower”: “And hit the weight pile / The brothers was swole.” In addition, it was applied as a verb to describe becoming ripped or cut, as when the late Tupac Shakur applied it in his 1997 song “When I Get Free”: “… did push-ups till I swole up.”

Examples of swole in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

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Its brawny take on Santa, played by an unsettlingly swole J.K. Simmons, is reminiscent of the one in Rise of the Guardians. —

Alison Willmore, Vulture, 6 Nov. 2024 The first two episodes of Monsters paint a portrait of the brothers that matches the first impressions most people got of them from the media: They are entitled, rich, preppy, swole dudes tooling around Los Angeles in limousines. —

Jen Chaney, Vulture, 20 Sep. 2024 The active, swole, and sporty will love the gift of new training gear, such as a pair of bestselling Nike sneakers, a self-cleaning water bottle, or a Theragun, in blue. —

Cortne Bonilla, Vogue, 11 Oct. 2024 Getting swole will still require actual work, though. —

Gear Team, WIRED, 4 Dec. 2023 Instagram posts have appeared with images of your swole bod. —

Steven Levy, WIRED, 14 July 2023 My main objective wasn’t to get swole, but the lack of growth still bummed me out. —

Brett Williams, Men's Health, 27 June 2023 Gotta get those shoveling muscles swole. —

Erik Kain, Forbes, 20 Feb. 2023 Jackman has been playing the character of Wolverine for over 20 years, beginning with the 2000 movie X-Men, and his physique throughout that franchise has changed considerably—as have audience expectations regarding just how swole a leading man should be. —

Philip Ellis, Men's Health, 19 Mar. 2023