devour
Americanverb (used with object)
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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:
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
Postsurgery, she began to devour several novels a week—but only about romance.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 11, 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
When I see my girlfriend devour books faster than the popcorn she keeps within arm’s reach, I feel guilty — and envious.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 16, 2026
For I am hungry, and must devour to live.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
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
Not the flickery stuff I wore last year in the chariot, but something much more real that devours my dress.
From "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins
The blaze had devoured an area nearly twice the size of Manhattan by Friday morning.
From Barron's ● Jul. 24, 2026
"We have tentatively suggested that the long palps might allow the male to keep a safer distance during mating and help him avoid being attacked and devoured by the highly aggressive female."
From Science Daily ● Apr. 6, 2026
To her amazement, close to 200 people came with more than 180 cakes devoured.
From BBC ● Mar. 28, 2026
Yes, it generated billions in cash last year, but that was largely devoured by the all-too-real cash costs that come with paying stock-based compensation to employees.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 23, 2026
“The sphinxes,” she said, “told us that the Immortal had a dryad-wood boat. The last Immortal put it in the dining room, when he left the palace to be devoured by Time.”
From "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell
The beds and food bowls are gone; the floor where they always left messes after devouring the grub I made them is eerily clean.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
The fire erupted Tuesday in the Var region and spread at an unexpectedly fast pace, forcing some 400 people to evacuate and devouring 2,550 hectares.
From Barron's ● Jul. 22, 2026
She never finished high school, but compensated for her incomplete education by devouring books and absorbing ideas.
From Salon ● Jul. 6, 2026
“Work was really devouring me,” Luis Saavedra said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 12, 2026
Thomas’s stomach begged him to hurry; he picked up his sandwich and started devouring it.
From "The Maze Runner" by James Dashner
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
