welling

Pluralwellings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of well.

   Water was welling up from a crack in the old stone floor.

   Tears kept welling in his eyes throughout the ceremony.

   Note

   Only the verb behind well can supply this form. The adverb well (competently, fully) has no -ing, so welling always means flowing or seeping. The verb is intransitive, so nothing follows it as an object. Instead it pairs with up, in or from to name where the liquid rises: tears welling in the eyes, water welling up from the ground. As a gerund it shades into the noun for a rising flow.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The action of rising or flowing forth, in the manner of water issuing from a spring.

   The welling of springwater kept the small pool full all summer.

   There was a slow welling of emotion in the crowd as the anthem played.

   Similarsurge, rise, outpouring, flow

   Note

   A noun for anything that rises and spreads from below, not only water. Norman Lindsay's Age of Consent (1938) describes dawn as a welling upwards of white light, and T. A. Jaggar (1947) writes of wellings up of molten glass. The noun often takes up or upwards after it, and it counts. The plural ending goes on welling, not on the particle, so the form is wellings up.

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