Adjacent Words

Deluge definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

DELUGE, n. [L. To wash.]
1. Any overflowing of water; an inundation; a flood; a swell of water over the natural banks of a river or shore of the ocean, spreading over the adjacent land. But appropriately, the great flood or overflowing of the earth by water, in the days of Noah; according to the common chronology, Anno Mundi, 1656. Genesis 6.
2. A sweeping or overwhelming calamity.
DELUGE, v.t.
1. To overflow with water; to inundate; to drown. The waters deluged the earth and destroyed the old world.
2. To overwhelm; to cover with any flowing or moving, spreading body. The Northern nations deluged the Roman empire with their armies.
3. To overwhelm; to cause to sink under the weight of a general or spreading calamity; as, the land is deluged with corruption.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: an overwhelming number or amount; "a flood of requests"; "a torrent of abuse" [syn: flood, inundation, deluge, torrent]
2: a heavy rain [syn: downpour, cloudburst, deluge, waterspout, torrent, pelter, soaker]
3: the rising of a body of water and its overflowing onto normally dry land; "plains fertilized by annual inundations" [syn: flood, inundation, deluge, alluvion] v
1: fill quickly beyond capacity; as with a liquid; "the basement was inundated after the storm"; "The images flooded his mind" [syn: deluge, flood, inundate, swamp]
2: charge someone with too many tasks [syn: overwhelm, deluge, flood out]
3: fill or cover completely, usually with water [syn: inundate, deluge, submerge]

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French deluje, from Latin diluvium, from diluere to wash away, from dis- + lavere to wash — more at lye Date: 14th century 1. a. an overflowing of the land by water b. a drenching rain 2. an overwhelming amount or number <received a deluge of offers> II. transitive verb (deluged; deluging) Date: 1593 1. to overflow with water ; inundate 2. overwhelm, swamp

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & v. --n. 1 a great flood. 2 (the Deluge) the biblical Flood (Gen. 6-8). 3 a great outpouring (of words, paper, etc.). 4 a heavy fall of rain. --v.tr. 1 flood. 2 inundate with a great number or amount (deluged with complaints). Etymology: ME f. OF f. L diluvium, rel. to lavare wash

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Deluge Del"uge, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Deluged; p. pr. & vb. n. Deluging.] 1. To overflow with water; to inundate; to overwhelm. The deluged earth would useless grow. --Blackmore. 2. To overwhelm, as with a deluge; to cover; to overspread; to overpower; to submerge; to destroy; as, the northern nations deluged the Roman empire with their armies; the land is deluged with woe. At length corruption, like a general flood . . . Shall deluge all. --Pope.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Deluge Del"uge, n. [F. d['e]luge, L. diluvium, fr. diluere wash away; di- = dis- + luere, equiv. to lavare to wash. See Lave, and cf. Diluvium.] 1. A washing away; an overflowing of the land by water; an inundation; a flood; specifically, The Deluge, the great flood in the days of Noah (--Gen. vii.). 2. Fig.: Anything which overwhelms, or causes great destruction. ``The deluge of summer.'' --Lowell. A fiery deluge fed With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed. --Milton. As I grub up some quaint old fragment of a [London] street, or a house, or a shop, or tomb or burial ground, which has still survived in the deluge. --F. Harrison. After me the deluge. (Apr['e]s moi le d['e]luge.) --Madame de Pompadour.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(deluges, deluging, deluged) 1. A deluge of things is a large number of them which arrive or happen at the same time. A deluge of manuscripts began to arrive in the post... This has brought a deluge of criticism. = flood N-COUNT: usu sing, usu N of n 2. If a place or person is deluged with things, a large number of them arrive or happen at the same time. During 1933, Papen's office was deluged with complaints. VERB: usu passive, be V-ed with/by n 3. A deluge is a sudden, very heavy fall of rain. About a dozen homes were damaged in the deluge. = downpour N-COUNT

Easton's Bible Dictionary

the name given to Noah's flood, the history of which is recorded in Gen. 7 and 8.

It began in the year 2516 B.C., and continued twelve lunar months and ten days, or exactly one solar year.

The cause of this judgment was the corruption and violence that filled the earth in the ninth generation from Adam. God in righteous indignation determined to purge the earth of the ungodly race. Amid a world of crime and guilt there was one household that continued faithful and true to God, the household of Noah. "Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations."

At the command of God, Noah made an ark 300 cubits long, 50 broad, and 30 high. He slowly proceeded with this work during a period of one hundred and twenty years (Gen. 6:3). At length the purpose of God began to be carried into effect. The following table exhibits the order of events as they occurred:

In the six hundredth year of his life Noah is commanded by God to enter the ark, taking with him his wife, and his three sons with their wives (Gen. 7:1-10).

The rain begins on the seventeenth day of the second month (Gen. 7:11-17).

The rain ceases, the waters prevail, fifteen cubits upward (Gen. 7:18-24).

The ark grounds on one of the mountains of Ararat on the seventeenth day of the seventh month, or one hundred and fifty days after the Deluge began (Gen. 8:1-4).

Tops of the mountains visible on the first day of the tenth month (Gen. 8:5).

Raven and dove sent out forty days after this (Gen. 8:6-9).

Dove again sent out seven days afterwards; and in the evening she returns with an olive leaf in her mouth (Gen. 8:10, 11).

Dove sent out the third time after an interval of other seven days, and returns no more (Gen. 8:12).

The ground becomes dry on the first day of the first month of the new year (Gen. 8:13).

Noah leaves the ark on the twenty-seventh day of the second month (Gen. 8:14-19).

The historical truth of the narrative of the Flood is established by the references made to it by our Lord (Matt. 24:37; comp. Luke 17:26). Peter speaks of it also (1 Pet. 3:20; 2 Pet. 2:5). In Isa. 54:9 the Flood is referred to as "the waters of Noah." The Biblical narrative clearly shows that so far as the human race was concerned the Deluge was universal; that it swept away all men living except Noah and his family, who were preserved in the ark; and that the present human race is descended from those who were thus preserved.

Traditions of the Deluge are found among all the great divisions of the human family; and these traditions, taken as a whole, wonderfully agree with the Biblical narrative, and agree with it in such a way as to lead to the conclusion that the Biblical is the authentic narrative, of which all these traditions are more or less corrupted versions. The most remarkable of these traditions is that recorded on tablets prepared by order of Assur-bani-pal, the king of Assyria. These were, however, copies of older records which belonged to somewhere about B.C. 2000, and which formed part of the priestly library at Erech (q.v.), "the ineradicable remembrance of a real and terrible event." (See NOAH; CHALDEA.)

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

I. n. Flood, overflow, inundation, cataclysm. II. v. a. Submerge, inundate, overflow, drown, overwhelm.

Moby Thesaurus

Niagara, abound, affusion, alluvion, alluvium, army, aspergation, aspersion, avalanche, baptism, baptize, bath, bathing, be prodigal with, bedewing, brash, burst of rain, bury, cascade, cataclysm, cataract, cloudburst, cluster, cohue, crowd, crush, dampening, damping, dewing, dip, douse, downfall, downflow, downpour, drench, drencher, drown, drowning, duck, dunk, embarras de richesses, engulf, engulfment, enough, extravagance, extravagancy, float, flock, flood, flood the market, flooding, flow on, flush, flux, fresh, freshet, galaxy, gush, gushing rain, heap, heavy rain, horde, hosing, hosing down, host, humidification, immerge, immerse, immersion, inundate, inundation, irrigation, jam, landslide, laving, lavishness, legion, mass, merge, mob, moistening, money to burn, more than enough, multitude, overabundance, overaccumulation, overbounteousness, overbrim, overcome, overcopiousness, overdose, overequip, overflow, overflowing, overfurnish, overlavish, overlavishness, overluxuriance, overmeasure, overmuchness, overnumerousness, overplentifulness, overplenty, overpopulation, overprofusion, overprovender, overprovide, overprovision, overrun, overrunning, oversell, overstock, oversufficiency, oversupply, overwhelm, panoply, plash, plenty, plethora, plunge in water, pour, pour on, pour out, pour over, press, prodigality, rabble, rain, rainburst, rainspout, rainstorm, redundancy, rinsing, river, rout, ruck, run over, scud, sink, slop, slosh, sluice, soak, soaker, soaking rain, sop, souse, sparging, spate, spattering, spill, spill out, spill over, spillage, splashing, splattering, spout, spraying, sprinkling, stream, submerge, submerse, submersion, superabundance, superflux, swamp, swashing, sweep, teem, the Deluge, the Flood, throng, torrent, torrent of rain, washout, waterflood, watering, waterspout, wet, wetting, whelm, whelming