swelled head

(swĕld)

n. Informal

An unduly high opinion of oneself.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

swelled head

swollen head

informal an inflated view of one's own worth, often caused by sudden success

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

swelled′ head′

an inordinately grand opinion of oneself; conceit.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

swelled head - an exaggerated opinion of your own importance

egotism, self-importance

conceitedness, vanity, conceit - the trait of being unduly vain and conceited; false pride

superiority complex - an exaggerated estimate of your own value and importance

swelled head

noun

Informal. An exaggerated belief in one's own importance:

egoism, egotism, self-importance.

Informal: bighead, bigheadedness.

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

'And what if she should have slipped in clambering among them,' I reflected, 'and been killed, or broken some of her bones?' My suspense was truly painful; and, at first, it gave me delightful relief to observe, in hurrying by the farmhouse, Charlie, the fiercest of the pointers, lying under a window, with swelled head and bleeding ear.

View in context

We might have also joined in the dance, but for some reason or other it didn't occur to us; and I heard once a high, clear woman's voice stigmatizing us for a "species of swelled heads" (espece d'enfles).

View in context

Love doesn't strut, Doesn't have a swelled head, Doesn't force itself on others, Isn't always 'me first,' Doesn't fly off the handle, Doesn't keep score of the sins of others, Doesn't revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end." It takes supernatural help to love like this.

The gold standard: loving as God loves us

The company, which provides electrical infrastructure, technical design, installation and support for the commercial industry, is recruiting four new staff members, increasing its workforce to 22 - a move which means it will have swelled head count by 54% this year, having already taken on six new skilled staff.

Service firm in the fast lane with its turnover

My great-grandfather (father side) wrote pedagogical stuff and his father, a swelled head blacksmith, used to write down in a book the things that seemed important to him.

Interviewing women writers: Doina Rusti

Several worries keep him from getting a swelled head. First is Angie Stegner, a judge's daughter who was his babysitter.

Lynch, Jim. The highest tide

He's a slobby, pampered, overfed prep school geek with a swelled head that isn't entirely the result of his permanently congested sinuses.

On Broadway: words can't say it all in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee