colloq. [f. SWELL sb. 9 + -DOM.] The realm or world of ‘swells’; people of rank and fashion, or of distinction of any kind.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, xliii. When all Swelldom is at her feet.
1864. J. R. Green, Lett., II. (1901), 152. My paper made a sensation and placed me among the swells—a thing I care less and less about as I more and more discover what a false pretence antiquarian swelldom is.
1885. Graphic, 21 Feb., 174/2. In the railway train, we sit either in exclusive ‘swelldom’ in the first, or herd with ‘the vulgar’ in the third class.
