immerse
Americanverb (used with object)
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immerses,
present (3rd person singular)
-
immersed,
past participle, past
-
immersing
present participle
verb
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(often foll by in) to plunge or dip into liquid
-
to involve deeply; engross
to immerse oneself in a problem
-
to baptize by immersion
Synonym Usage
See dip 1.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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immersesimple
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immersessimple
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have immersedperfect
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has immersedperfect
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am immersingprogressive
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are immersingprogressive
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is immersingprogressive
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have been immersingperfect progressive
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has been immersingperfect progressive
Past
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immersedsimple
-
had immersedperfect
-
was immersingprogressive
-
were immersingprogressive
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had been immersingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of immerse
First recorded in 1595–1605; from Latin immersus “plunged, sunken into,” past participle of immergere “to dip, plunge, sink into”; see immerge
Explanation
If you immerse yourself in your work, you completely involve yourself in it, spending long hours in the office and thinking about work all the time. Immerse can also mean to submerge in a liquid. A science experiment might tell you to immerse a piece of paper completely in water. If you are a swimmer immersed in a rigorous training regimen, you might be immersing yourself in the pool several times a day.
Vocabulary lists containing immerse
ACT Vocabulary List
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With the Fire on High
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"Speaking Up"
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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:
The entertainment company combines movie screenings with live theatre performances and themed environments, allowing audiences to immerse themselves in their favourite stories.
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026
“I like to immerse myself and have a real experience and hopefully make it funny so it’s like a spoonful of sugar for the audience as they learn something.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 25, 2026
Sometimes it really is as simple as putting on the wig or turning on a movie to immerse yourself in an experience beyond your own.
From Salon ● Jun. 22, 2026
As thrilling as it was to immerse myself in American sports, English football was my foundational text.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
My response to my problems was to immerse myself in literature.
From "Bad Boy" by Walter Dean Myers
Ms. Sampson, a professor emerita of poetry at the University of Roehampton, expertly immerses readers in the cultural and intellectual world that produced one of the greatest practitioners of 19th-century literature.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
"Rob is that kind of actor where he immerses himself so deeply you sort of don't know where he ends and the character begins," Evans said.
From BBC ● Feb. 24, 2026
Frank Dikötter is an iconoclast historian who immerses himself in the primary sources more thoroughly than any other Western scholar of 20th-century China.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 13, 2026
Ever since, she’s been hooked, admitting the premium format is “the only legit movie experience that immerses you in the story.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 18, 2025
His father takes his hand and holds him while he immerses him completely in the muddy water and quickly pulls him back up, dripping.
From "The Serpent King" by Jeff Zentner
A modern-day museum curator is commissioned to recreate a past scene in a historic palace, and becomes immersed in the world of the young, reluctant king whose life she uncovers.
From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2026
She then immersed herself in the Social Democratic party, whose youth league she joined when she was 16.
From Barron's ● Sep. 17, 2026
In Chicago, ACT UP’s Gregg Bordowitz became her mentor and professor, and for three years, Rosales immersed herself in learning, becoming obsessed with Gertrude Stein and philosophers like Gilles Deleuze.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026
Their talent lies primarily in media, having been immersed in it from birth—the internet, its apps, its entertainment and information flow.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
Somewhere between Bragg the theorist and Perutz the experimentalist was Francis, who occasionally did experiments but more often was immersed in the theories for solving protein structures.
From "Double Helix" by James D. Watson
Flores describes “Ritchie Forever” as a “multimedia experience, going back in time with sound and immersing in the history.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2026
The project, led by the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District and OceanWell Co., involves immersing pods the size of school buses into the ocean, more than 1,200 feet down.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026
"We can levitate objects against gravity by immersing them in a sound field called a standing wave."
From Science Daily ● Mar. 22, 2026
A jazz and blues singer, she'd invite her niece to concerts and recording sessions, immersing her in the world of professional musicianship.
From BBC ● Jan. 8, 2026
So, instead, I went to Times Square, from movie house to movie house, immersing myself in westerns and horror movies—the way I used to.
From "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes
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.
