engulf
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
-
to immerse, plunge, bury, or swallow up
-
(often passive) to overwhelm
engulfed by debts
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
engulfsimple
-
engulfssimple
-
have engulfedperfect
-
has engulfedperfect
-
am engulfingprogressive
-
are engulfingprogressive
-
is engulfingprogressive
-
have been engulfingperfect progressive
-
has been engulfingperfect progressive
Past
-
engulfedsimple
-
had engulfedperfect
-
was engulfingprogressive
-
were engulfingprogressive
-
had been engulfingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of engulf
Explanation
Engulf is a verb that means being completely surrounded, soaked, or covered. Fire, snow, smoke, flood waters, or even violence are a few things that could engulf you. Suppose an amusement park had a ride called Into the Whirlpool. Sounds like one for thrill-seekers who aren't afraid of water. Riders should expect to get lost inside, fully absorbed by the experience. The word engulf comes from the Old French word golfe, meaning "whirlpool," and the prefix en-, meaning "in or into." Riders of Into the Whirlpool should expect to feel engulfed — surrounded by water and completely covered.
Vocabulary lists containing engulf
Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" Speech (1963)
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"A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury
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Divergent
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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:
As it grows, it will engulf Mercury, Venus and possibly Earth.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 16, 2026
Later, explaining to his mom why he doesn’t have any friends his own age, Valdi purses his lips in a mimicry of the older men who would engulf him — a touchingly sad little detail.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 22, 2026
When fires broke out, flames could engulf an entire train car, forcing Woods to act quickly to contain the blaze with buckets of water and shovelfuls of sand.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 18, 2026
"If you keep working hard, the hard work will find a way to engulf the problem and make it tolerable. That is what I'm doing."
From BBC ● Feb. 21, 2026
Nine steps down and she’s on the sand and the twenty thousand sounds of the ocean engulf her.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
Scaffolding engulfs the inside of the giant multi-billion-dollar structure, rising all the way up to the 100-metre-high ceiling.
From Barron's ● Dec. 26, 2025
By soon, they mean any time before the sun engulfs us all, which will happen sometime in the next five billion years.
From Salon ● Feb. 25, 2025
Deficits have already appeared in some provinces, where local governments that had relied heavily on land sales for revenue are now struggling with debt as a real estate crisis engulfs China's economy.
From BBC ● Feb. 11, 2025
As real-life NBC executive Dave Tebet, Dafoe is literally the adult in “Saturday Night’s” room as chaos engulfs the young comedians pratfalling toward the sketch show’s 1975 first broadcast.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 31, 2024
A flash of red light engulfs the scene, and the omniscient voice echoes all around us.
From "Warcross" by Marie Lu
Bodycam and dashcam footage shows a police officer rescue a man seconds before his car was engulfed in flames near Dallas, Texas.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
China launched a campaign against fire hazards in high-rise buildings in November, after a huge blaze engulfed several tower blocks in Hong Kong, killing 168 people.
From Barron's ● Jul. 9, 2026
SEATTLE—For all of the controversy that had engulfed Team USA in the 24 hours leading up to its match against Belgium, the game itself was always going to represent something more than a political maelstrom.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026
Venezuela has been engulfed in economic and political turmoil for more than a decade.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 27, 2026
At the mention of dying, a surge of feeling had engulfed him, pushing him beyond anger into an extremity of bewilderment and disgust.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
Burnham is taking the reins amid global "turmoil", or so says the Sun, which writes that chaos is "already engulfing the crucial issue of oil and gas drilling".
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026
Now there are fears that as Wagner digs deeper into Bangui, it will add to the chaos already engulfing the wider region, said Dukhan, the researcher.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026
The size of the prize and the penalties for failure have been illustrated by the instant pressure engulfing Nagelsmann - and the departure of Dutch counterpart Koeman - after those losses.
From BBC ● Jul. 1, 2026
The mercury could climb to 38C in Ukraine this week as Europe's deadly, record-breaking heatwave drifts eastward, engulfing the western half of the war-torn country.
From Barron's ● Jun. 30, 2026
The bustling interior radiated with enormous, engulfing waves of fun and warmth.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
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.
