tumescent
/tuˈmɛsənt/adjective
tumescent is an adjective meaning “Swollen or distended with fluid, as of erectile tissue” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled T-U-M-E-S-C-E-N-T and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 24 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does tumescent mean?
adjective
- 1
Swollen or distended with fluid, as of erectile tissue.
- 2
Inflated or overblown.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce tumescent?
- US /tuˈmɛsənt/
- US /tjuˈmɛsənt/
Tumescent has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-tumescent.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of tumescent
- more tumescent comparative
- most tumescent superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is tumescent?
Tumescent appears about once in every 24 million words in written English, the 148,541st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Tumescent in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense swollen or distended with fluid:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| German | anschwellend |
| Portuguese | tumescente, intumescente |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does tumescent come from?
From Latin tumēscēns (“swelling, bloating”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).