Wiktionary

inundate

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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