1. A state of confusion, upheaval or turmoil.
Freq. from c. 1870, often with suggestion of 2 or 3.
1596. Dalrymple, trans. Leslie’s Hist. Scot., II. 277. He feiret be that coniunctione suld follow sum Welter in the religioune, casting doune of the Kirkes, Monasteries and siklike. Ibid., 465.
1619. Bp. Andrewes, 96 Serm., Nativ., xiii. (1629), 125. Away with peace, moveatur terra, let all the earth be on a welter.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., III. VI. ii. 355. [Danton] was heard to ejaculate … ‘I leave the whole business in a frightful welter (gâchis épouvantable): not one of them understands anything of government.’ Ibid. (1864), Fredk. Gt., XV. v. IV. 81. What a downrush of confusion there ensued…. Belleisle himself must have paused uncertain over such a welter.
1888. Sat. Rev., 26 May, 621. They [Liberal-Unionists] are not precisely the strongest party in the present welter of English politics.
2. The rolling, tossing or tumbling (of the sea or waves).
1849. Cupples, Green Hand, iv. (1856), 47. The long welter of the sea when the ship eased down.
1863. Whittier, Andrew Rykman’s Prayer, 88. In the welter of this sea Nothing stable is but Thee.
1898. Kipling, Fleet in Being, i. 10. He … went out serenely to take his boat home through the dark and the dismal welter.
fig. 1873. Dowden, in Contemp. Rev., XXII. 177. It is rather the oscillation, the refluence and welter of the great social and moral wave flung forward by the wind of revolution.
3. A surging or confused mass: a. of material things, persons, etc.
1857. Kingsley, Two Y. Ago, iii. A confused welter and quiver of mingled air, and rain, and spray.
1891. Spectator, 18 July, 87/1. A ‘World’s Fair’ is apt to call up sickening recollections of … a vast welter of ‘miscellaneous exhibits.’
1893. McCarthy, Red Diamonds, III. 235. Covered with the wreck and welter of the ruined building.
b. of immaterial things.
1851. Carlyle, Sterling, III. v. (1872), 206. His talk … went tumbling as if in mere welters of explosive unreason.
1864. D. G. Mitchell, Wet Days at Edgewood, 306. It is strange how many good men do,—losing point and force and efficiency in a welter of words!
1880. McCarthy, Own Times, IV. lxvii. 533. The historian is constantly involving himself in a welter of inconsistencies and errors.
