swallow up

English edit

swallow up (third-person singular simple present swallows up, present participle swallowing up, simple past and past participle swallowed up)

To completely enclose or envelop.
- 1934 February, G. W. Tripp, “How Nature Harasses the Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 79:
  Actually the job was almost the despair of those early pioneers, for the surface was a "quaking morass," the surrounding district was undrained, and no sooner than soil was deposited than it was swallowed up, with no apparent effect, for the sponginess of the land remained unaltered.
To take over or absorb something (especially an organisation) so it no longer has a separate identity; to assimilate.
To voraciously consume resources, such as money; to devour.

completely enclose or envelop