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inundate

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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English

WOTD – 20 May 2008

Etymology

First attested in 1623; borrowed from Latin inundātus, the perfect passive participle of inundō (“to flood, overflow”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from in- + undō (“to overflow, wave”), from unda (“wave”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix).

Pronunciation

Verb

inundate (third-person singular simple present inundates, present participle inundating, simple past and past participle inundated)

  1. To cover with large amounts of water; to flood.
    The Dutch would sometimes inundate the land to hinder the Spanish army.
  2. To overwhelm.
    The agency was inundated with phone calls.
    • 1852, The New Monthly Magazine, page 310:
      I don't know any quarter in England where you get such undeniable mutton—mutton that eats like mutton, instead of the nasty watery, stringy, turnipy stuff, neither mutton nor lamb, that other countries are inundated with.
    • 1972, Carol A. Nemeyer, Scholarly Reprint Publishing in the United States, New York, N.Y.: R. R. Bowker Co., →ISBN, page 8:
      That books are pouring off the world’s presses at unprecedented rates is a fact often alluded to as a flood that is inundating libraries and the book trades.

Synonyms

Translations

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Esperanto

Adverb

inundate

  1. present adverbial passive participle of inundi

Latin

Verb

inundāte

  1. second-person plural present active imperative of inundō

Spanish

Verb

inundate

  1. second-person singular voseo imperative of inundar combined with te

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