verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   To overwhelm. transitive

   "Depression engulfed her after her daughter's death."

2. 2
   devote (oneself) fully to wordnet
3. 3
   To surround; to cover; to submerge. transitive

   "Only Noah and his family survived when the Flood engulfed the world."

4. 4
   flow over or cover completely wordnet
5. 5
   To cast into a gulf. transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms

absorbbaptizebe prodigal withburycascadecataract

Example

More examples

"The flood waters are predicted to engulf the town."

Etymology

From en- + gulf.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.