Sweals

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Slowly melts or wastes away from heat, as a candle or tallow does when it burns down
2. Gradually dwindles and disappears through the steady action of heat or flame
3. Burns down or wears away slowly, becoming smaller as the material is consumed by fire

Etymology: "Sweals" is the third-person singular present form of "sweal", a verb meaning to waste away slowly under heat or flame. The verb descends from Old English "swelan", meaning to burn or be burnt up, and before that from a Proto-Germanic root meaning to smoulder or burn slowly. That same ancestor produced the German "schwelen" and Dutch "zwelen", both still meaning to smoulder. The surprise lies in the root's other sense. Proto-Germanic "*swelaną" also covered a burningly cold sensation, so the same stem could describe fire and frost. Icelandic "svala", meaning to cool, is a close relative, which shows how heat and cold could share a single root. The verb's close kin is "swelter", the sense of suffering from oppressive heat, which shares this ancestry. Because "sweal" survives mostly in dialect and literary use, it feels archaic, yet its root has been spreading through northern European languages for well over a thousand years.