To Swelter...

Today at noon:

On the news last night we were told that Long Beach reached a record high of 100F yesterday. It was 70F at 4:00 am this morning, long before the sun arose. I know this because I got up to let the cat out and turned on the porch light to check the temperature. The air was dead calm, not the slightest breeze to cool us off; there's no doubt about it: the sweltering "dog days of summer" have arrived early this year!

Swelter.....there's an odd word for you. When was the last time you heard anyone use it? This got me to wondering where "swelter" comes from, so I went to Dictionary.com and found the two interesting references below. This first one even provides translations, should you find yourself in need of them:

swelter [ˈsweltə] verb = (of a person etc) to be uncomfortably hot

Example: I'm sweltering in this heat!

Arabic: يَتَصَبَّب عَرَقا
Chinese (Simplified): 热得发昏, 闷热
Chinese (Traditional): 熱得發昏, 悶熱
Czech: pařit se
Danish: være ved at gå til af varme
Dutch: smoren
Estonian: (palavusest) lämbuma
Finnish: läkähtyä
French: étouffer de chaleur
German: vor Hitze vergehen
Greek: σκάω από ζέστη
Hungarian: eltikkad
Icelandic: vera að stikna
Indonesian: kepanasan
Italian: soffocare
Japanese: 暑苦しい
Korean: 더위먹다
Latvian: gurt no svelmes, *karstuma
Lithuanian: leipti
Norwegian: holde på å forgå av varme, smelte
Polish: omdlewać z upału
Portuguese (Brazil): sufocar
Portuguese (Portugal): derreter
Romanian: a se sufoca de căldură
Russian: изнемогать от жары
Slovak: pariť sa
Slovenian: dušiti se od vročine
Spanish: abrasarse, asarse de calor
Swedish: försmäkta, förgås
Turkish: sıcaktan bunalmak

Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary (Beta Version), © 2000-2006 K Dictionaries Ltd.

Here is some etymological information (the derivation of words is fascinating, don't you think?):

swelter
c.1403, frequentative of swelten "be faint (especially with heat)," c.1386, from O.E. sweltan "to die," from P.Gmc. *swel- (cf. O.S. sweltan "to die," O.N. svelta "to put to death, starve," Goth. sviltan "to die"), originally "to burn slowly," hence "to be overcome with heat or fever;" also the source of O.E. swelan "to burn," from PIE base *swel- "to shine, burn" (see Selene). For specialization of words meaning "to die," cf. starve.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

In that list of translations above, I notice the Italian soffocare is a lot like suffocate; and isn't it interesting that Brazilian Portuguese sufocar is so close to the Italian and so different from Portuguese Portuguese derreter. Latvian is somewhat close to the original etymology with gurt no swelmes (I took a linguistics class once in college where I learned that Latvian is probably the closest to the original tongue from which all the Indo-European family of languages evolved). However, perhaps the closest to the etymological source of swelter in the list above is the Norwegian smelte, (I think of smelting iron) and just one letter difference from svelte.

This causes me to wonder: surely svelte is also derived from the same source words. Svelte people are very slim....usually from not eating enough. Some people are naturally beautiful and svelte just because that's how God made them, like Audrey Hepburn, or Nicole Kidman. Most of us, however, can only attain a state of svelteness with much effort and constant care about diet and exercise.

Hmmmm....it's also interesting that swelter, smelt, and melt all have the common element of very high heat. Heat does suppress one's appetite at times....

Smelt, melt, swelter,
it's all so helter skelter;
if this heat wave never stops,
I'm sure I'll soon be svelter!

(Sorry, my silliness is showing - blame it on the heat!)
I'll stop now before I bore you all to tears.