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:
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
The series had a successful reboot as Gen Z viewers continue to devour vintage programs.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 16, 2026
Fans could sip on BTS chocolate lattes or devour BTS kimchi-and-beef burritos.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 20, 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 the Sun, ruddy and bloated, becomes a red giant, it will envelop and devour the planets Mercury and Venus—and probably the Earth as well.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
"If you don't run from it and you try to face it, it devours you," Ecologio Cabrera, 86, told AFP after fleeing with nothing.
From Barron's ● Jul. 25, 2026
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
It enters a chestnut effortlessly, devours the cambium cells, and positions itself for attack on the next tree before the tree has the faintest idea, chemically speaking, what hit it.
From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
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
The blaze had devoured an area nearly twice the size of Manhattan by Friday morning.
From Barron's ● Jul. 24, 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
It arrived at the peak of unscripted television’s popularity — a period when audiences devoured shows like “Survivor” and “American Idol” at their regularly scheduled times on television.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 24, 2026
Each time a tray of pastries was brought to him, he devoured all the fancies and pastries on it, leaving all the other women hungry.
From "Norse Mythology" by Neil Gaiman
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
It’s only people like Ruth, who thanklessly work to allay that suffering even in the smallest ways, that keep the darkness from devouring us whole.
From Salon ● Jun. 18, 2026
“Steve’s pursuit of perfection was devouring the timeline,” Mr. Cain writes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 17, 2026
“Work was really devouring me,” Luis Saavedra said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 12, 2026
They often dragged away their prey before devouring it.
From "Tiger Boy" by Mitali Perkins
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.
