well up

1. 1.

   come up (as of feelings and thoughts, or other ephemeral things)

   “Strong emotions welled up”

   “Smoke swelled from it”

   Synonymsswell

   Broaderoriginate

Questions about well up

What does well up mean?

well up means "come up (as of feelings and thoughts, or other ephemeral things)".

What is another word for well up?

Close synonyms include swell. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is well up a common word?

well up is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.