devour
Americanverb (used with object)
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devours,
present (3rd person singular)
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devoured,
past participle, past
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devouring
present participle
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to swallow or eat up hungrily, voraciously, or ravenously.
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to consume destructively, recklessly, or wantonly.
Fire devoured the old museum.
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to engulf or swallow up.
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to take in greedily with the senses or intellect.
to devour the works of Freud.
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to absorb or engross wholly.
a mind devoured by fears.
verb
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to swallow or eat up greedily or voraciously
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to waste or destroy; consume
the flames devoured the curtains
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to consume greedily or avidly with the senses or mind
he devoured the manuscripts
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to engulf or absorb
the flood devoured the land
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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devourernoun
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devouringnessnoun
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interdevourverb (used with object)
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predevourverb (used with object)
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redevourverb (used with object)
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devouringadjective
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self-devouringadjective
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undevouredadjective
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devouringlyadverb
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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devoursimple
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devourssimple
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have devouredperfect
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has devouredperfect
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am devouringprogressive
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are devouringprogressive
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is devouringprogressive
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have been devouringperfect progressive
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has been devouringperfect progressive
Past
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devouredsimple
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had devouredperfect
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was devouringprogressive
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were devouringprogressive
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had been devouringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of devour
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English devouren, from Anglo-French, Old French devourer, from Latin dēvorāre “to swallow down,” from dē- de- + vorāre “to eat up”
Explanation
When you've gone all day without eating anything, you'll probably devour your dinner, especially if it's your very favorite homemade lasagna. Devour means to eat greedily and hungrily. The meaning of devour has grown to include the consumption of things other than food. If you sit down to start a book and look up ten hours later having turned the last page, you have devoured that book. If your after school job devours all your free time, chances are your grades are going to drop. The Latin root, devorare, means "to swallow down."
Vocabulary lists containing devour
Eat Your Words
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"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, Chapters 7–11
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Unit 1: Telling Details
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
I still devour new music this way, clocking a daily average of four hours of tunes familiar and novel.
From Salon ● Oct. 4, 2026
For him and his family, this is a rare chance to devour durians "of good quality, and sometimes at nearly half the price of previous seasons".
From BBC ● Jun. 29, 2026
Tech is having a tough week, with fresh fears AI is going to devour software and now Alphabet’s eye-popping capital spending plans to absorb.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 5, 2026
The company has seen the Gen Z audiences devour hits of yesteryear such as “How I Met Your Mother,” “Modern Family” and “Golden Girls.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 23, 2025
I handed him the remains of my turtle soup dinner, and, fascinated, watched him devour it.
From "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George
In India's tech capital Bengaluru, the morning "rush hour" lasts so long it devours half the workday, throttling productivity in a city often viewed as the poster child of a booming economy.
From Barron's ● Nov. 27, 2025
That hot, hard rock devours conventional drill bits and makes a hash of the concrete usually poured deep underground around the steel pipes required to line such a well and keep it from collapsing.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2025
The practical jokes on the show appeal to a younger generation that devours prank videos — from MrBeast to Dude Perfect — across YouTube and other social media platforms.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 18, 2025
In the show, rare glimpses of his inner turmoil come when he devours a lemon tart or a chocolate bar with a pleasureless intensity.
From New York Times ● Jun. 6, 2024
“Now come off there before the sea or something in it devours your semi-worthless hide.”
From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman
"I devoured all of these facts so now at any party, I have at least five Milton Keynes facts."
From BBC ● Oct. 26, 2026
He played football for his school team, devoured Harry Potter and Percy Jackson novels, loved science-fiction films and spent hours teaching himself hard-rock guitar riffs.
From BBC ● Aug. 2, 2026
Some 10,500 people were being evacuated from their homes near the city of Perpignan in southwestern France as firefighters tried to control a blaze that has devoured 1,650 hectares, authorities said.
From Barron's ● Jul. 5, 2026
It was admirable that Wemby played chess and devoured paperbacks, but what was going to happen in crunch time, when an opponent socked him in the gut and tried to shake him?
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 14, 2026
We devoured great mouthfuls of the mush with our hands.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
The candidates are bears in Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska, who are currently busy devouring as many calories as possible to fatten up for winter hibernation.
From Salon ● Sep. 26, 2026
Davis loved to read and collect books, devouring anything from John Updike and Margaret Atwood, among other authors, a passion that necessitated having bookshelves in every room of his home.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026
Toiling around the clock, haggard Indonesian firefighters on Borneo island cannot keep up with the blazes devouring landscapes and shrouding communities in a cloying haze.
From Barron's ● Sep. 6, 2026
Scavenger animals such as possums, red foxes and crows can be exposed to the virus while devouring the carcasses of infected birds.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 24, 2026
Thomas’s stomach begged him to hurry; he picked up his sandwich and started devouring it.
From "The Maze Runner" by James Dashner
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
