inundate

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English[edit]

WOTD – 20 May 2008

Etymology[edit]

From Latin inundō (“I flood, overflow”), from undō (“I overflow, I wave”), from unda (“wave”).

Pronunciation[edit]

  • (UK, US) IPA(key): /ˈɪn.ən.deɪt/
  • (UK, also) IPA(key): /ˈɪn.ʌn.deɪt/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Audio (AU)(file)

Verb[edit]

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[edit]

Related terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

Esperanto[edit]

Adverb[edit]

inundate

  1. present adverbial passive participle of inundi

Latin[edit]

Verb[edit]

inundāte

  1. second-person plural present active imperative of inundō

Spanish[edit]

Verb[edit]

inundate

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