Swol
Meaning
Swol, or alternatively spelled Swole or Swoll is a slang way of writing “swollen” used especially for someone, who had amassed a great amount of body muscle, due to weightlifting and a strict diet, as well as pure determination.
Search Interest
Origin of the term
The first online instance of the term comes from a 1998 Online Slang Dicitonary article, in which the word “swole” was defined as a synonym for “muscular”.
Spread of the term
The term had even appeared in a posthumous 2Pac song, titled “When I Get Free”.
In the song, the rapper is spraying a line “did pushups till I swole up” telling about his road to bulking.
In 2002, the first Urban Dictionary entry had defined the term, further spreading the word on the web.
During the early 2000’s swole had been mainly seen on bodybuilding forums, but in 2006, a music video had been uploaded to YouTube, with the title “Swole guy”.
The video features the bodybuilding hero and ex-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in various edited clips.
Following this, the meme community online had started to adopt the phrase, leading to it appearing on all kinds of sites, from Reddit, to Twitter to Facebook.
Video
Further information/sources
- Online Slang Dictionary – What does swoll mean?