intumescence

English

Etymology

See intumescent.

Noun

intumescence (countable and uncountable, plural intumescences)

1. (uncountable) the process of swelling up or the condition of being swollen
2. (countable) an instance of such swelling
   • 1755, Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, page 10:

     ...but there are other causes of change, which, though slow in their operation, and invisible in their progress, are perhaps as much superior to human resistance, as the revolutions of the sky, or intumescence of the tide.

Related terms

• intumescent