[f. WELTER v.1 + -ING2.]
1. Of the sea: That tumbles and tosses; raging, surging.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, III. 719. The Se wald rys on sic maner, That off the wawys the weltrand hycht Wald refe thaim oft off thar sycht.
c. 1420. Wyntoun, Cron., IV. 203. Qwhil þe weltrande wawis keyn Sulde a part asswagit beyn.
1423. James I., Kingis Q., c. In the huge weltering wawis…. Offs lufis rage.
1587. Turberv., Trag. Tales, Epit., etc., 170. No … wrath of weltring waues could stay, those martiall mates at home.
1629. Milton, Hymn Nativ., xii. While the Creator Great … bid the weltring waves their oozy channel keep.
1771. Beattie, Minstr., I. liv. The deep roar Of the wide-weltering waves.
1820. W. Irving, Sketch Bk. (1859), 7. The straining and groaning of bulk-heads, as the ship laboured in the weltering sea.
1870. Bryant, Iliad, XIV. 20. As when the face Of the great deep grows dark with weltering waves.
1897. F. T. Bullen, Cruise ‘Cachalot,’ 306. I trembled for his life in such a weltering whirl of rock-torn sea.
b. That is in a state of agitation, turmoil or confusion.
1831. Carlyle, Misc., Nibelungen Lied (1840), III. 71. A firm sunny island amid the weltering chaos of antique tradition.
1850. Kingsley, Alton Locke, xxviii. The weltering mass of bullocks, pigs, and human beings.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul, I. xviii. 329. That vast weltering mass of idolatry and corruption.
1890. J. Pulsford, Loyalty to Christ, I. 195. You restless, heaving, weltering kingdoms of Time, mock us not.
† 2. Sc. a. Moving clumsily or unsteadily. b. Rolling. Obs.
c. 1480. Henryson, Trial of Fox, 111. The wyld Once, the Buk, the Uelterand Brok.
1501. Douglas, Pal. Hon., III. xl. Thair micht I se … The welterand stone wirk Sisipho mich cair.
3. That is tossed about on or by the waves.
1609. Healey, Discov. New World, III. ii. 129. They … hold it fondnesse to hazard their liues either on a stumbling iade, or in a weltring barge.
1810. Scott, Lady of Lake, VI. xx. Another flash!—the spearman floats A weltering corse beside the boats.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul, II. xliii. 377. They had drifted fourteen days, tossed up and down on the heaving waves of Adria, a weltering plaything for the gale.
4. Lying prostrate in blood; saturated with blood.
1816. Byron, Ch. Har., III. li. And Slaughter heap’d on high his weltering ranks. Ibid., Siege of Cor., xvii. It is humbling to tread O’er the weltering field of the tombless dead.
