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• flood
  flood

  noun

  a great flowing or overflowing of water, especially over land not usually submerged.
• Flood
  Flood

  noun

  Henry . 1732–91, Anglo-Irish politician: leader of the parliamentary opposition to English rule

flood

American  

[fluhd] / flʌd /

noun

• floods
  plural

1. a great flowing or overflowing of water, especially over land not usually submerged.

2. any great outpouring or stream.

   a flood of emotions;

   a flood of requests;

   a flood of patients.

3. the Flood, a universal deluge recorded in the Bible, believed to have occurred in the days of Noah.

4. the rise or flowing in of the tide (opposed to ebb).

5. a floodlight.

6. Archaic. a large body of water.

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verb (used with object)

• floods,
  present (3rd person singular)
• flooded,
  past participle,  past
• flooding
  present participle

1. to overflow in or cover with a flood; fill to overflowing.

   Don't flood the bathtub.

2. to cover or fill, as if with a flood.

   The road was flooded with cars.

   Synonyms:

   deluge, inundate

3. to overwhelm with an abundance of something.

   to be flooded with mail.

   Synonyms:

   deluge, inundate

4. Automotive. to supply too much fuel to (the carburetor), so that the engine fails to start.

5. to floodlight.

verb (used without object)

• floods,
  present (3rd person singular)
• flooded,
  past participle,  past
• flooding
  present participle

1. to flow or pour in or as if in a flood.

2. to rise in a flood; overflow.

3. Pathology.

   1. to suffer uterine hemorrhage, especially in connection with childbirth.

   2. to have an excessive menstrual flow.

flood ¹ British  

/ flʌd /

noun

1. 1. the inundation of land that is normally dry through the overflowing of a body of water, esp a river

   2. the state of a river that is at an abnormally high level (esp in the phrase in flood )

2. a great outpouring or flow

   a flood of words

3. 1. the rising of the tide from low to high water

   2. ( as modifier ) Compare ebb

      the flood tide

4. theatre short for floodlight

5. archaic a large body of water, as the sea or a river

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verb

1. (of water) to inundate or submerge (land) or (of land) to be inundated or submerged

2. to fill or be filled to overflowing, as with a flood

   the children's home was flooded with gifts

3. (intr) to flow; surge

   relief flooded through him

4. to supply an excessive quantity of petrol to (a carburettor or petrol engine) or (of a carburettor, etc) to be supplied with such an excess

5. (intr) to rise to a flood; overflow

6. (intr)

   1. to bleed profusely from the uterus, as following childbirth

   2. to have an abnormally heavy flow of blood during a menstrual period

Flood ² British  

/ flʌd /

noun

1. Henry . 1732–91, Anglo-Irish politician: leader of the parliamentary opposition to English rule

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Flood ³ British  

/ flʌd /

noun

1. Old Testament the flood extending over all the earth from which Noah and his family and livestock were saved in the ark. (Genesis 7–8); the Deluge

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flood Scientific  

/ flŭd /

1. A temporary rise of the water level, as in a river or lake or along a seacoast, resulting in its spilling over and out of its natural or artificial confines onto land that is normally dry. Floods are usually caused by excessive runoff from precipitation or snowmelt, or by coastal storm surges or other tidal phenomena.

2. ◆ Floods are sometimes described according to their statistical occurrence. A fifty-year flood is a flood having a magnitude that is reached in a particular location on average once every fifty years. In any given year there is a two percent statistical chance of the occurrence of a fifty-year flood and a one percent chance of a hundred-year flood.

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Synonym Usage

Flood, flash flood, deluge, freshet, inundation refer to the overflowing of normally dry areas, often after heavy rains. Flood is usually applied to the overflow of a great body of water, as, for example, a river, although it may refer to any water that overflows an area: a flood along the river; a flood in a basement. A flash flood is one that comes so suddenly that no preparation can be made against it; it is usually destructive, but begins almost at once to subside: a flash flood caused by a downpour. Deluge suggests a great downpouring of water, sometimes with destruction: The rain came down in a deluge. Freshet suggests a small, quick overflow such as that caused by heavy rains: a freshet in an abandoned watercourse. Inundation, a literary word, suggests the covering of a great area of land by water: the inundation of thousands of acres.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• flooder
  noun
• overflood
  verb
• underflood
  verb
• floodable
  adjective
• floodless
  adjective
• floodlike
  adjective
• preflood
  adjective
• unflooded
  adjective
• well-flooded
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• floods
  plural

Participles

• flooding
  present
• flooded
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• flood
  simple
• floods
  simple
• have flooded
  perfect
• has flooded
  perfect
• am flooding
  progressive
• are flooding
  progressive
• is flooding
  progressive
• have been flooding
  perfect progressive
• has been flooding
  perfect progressive

Past

• flooded
  simple
• had flooded
  perfect
• was flooding
  progressive
• were flooding
  progressive
• had been flooding
  perfect progressive

Future

• will flood
  simple
• will have flooded
  perfect
• will be flooding
  progressive
• will have been flooding
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of flood

First recorded before 900; Middle English noun flod, Old English flōd; cognate with Gothic flōdus, Old High German fluot ( German Flut )

Explanation

A flood is an enormous amount of water. If the street is full of water, it's flooded. Too much of anything can also be called a flood. Whenever it rains and rains and rains, there's the danger of a flood, a type of disaster where water is out of control. Because a flood is so powerful, people use the word when overwhelmed by other things. A top college graduate could be flooded with job offers — that's a good kind of flood. People can also be flooded with emotion. Words with similar meanings are deluge and overflow. Too much — or just a lot — of anything can seem like a flood.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

flood Flood floods flooded flooding

But the price has been depressed by a flood of fiber from adjacent areas where mills have closed.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026

Plunging some 4,000 feet into a valley below, the ice pulverized into water upon impact to create a devastating flood, with the rock debris adding to the destructive power of the ice-and-rock avalanche.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026

The image below shows a power plant and bridge less than a mile downriver from the border post before and after the flood.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2026

In south Staffordshire there was a lower-level flood alert, with parts of Chasetown affected.

From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026

She put her finger on one of the threads coming out of her own chest, and that barest touch brought a flood of terror into her mind.

From Anya and the Nightingale by Sofiya Pasternack

Authorities in Guangxi have maintained the second-highest level for flood-control emergency response, according to the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

From Barron's ● Jul. 8, 2026

“Buckle up,” added John Flood, head of Americas equities execution services at Goldman Sachs.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 25, 2026

"Because traditional water systems are failing, Leh-Ladakh has become a hub for innovative, grassroots hydraulic engineering," says Murtaza Ali, executive engineer in the Irrigation and Flood Control Division, at the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council.

From BBC ● Jun. 18, 2026

“We were hoping that in 2026 demand would ease off a little bit as 2025 was this incredible year with a lot of things happening, but we’re not seeing it,” said Flood.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 14, 2026

It all looked as deserted as if the Flood had newly receded and left this one cold building in its wake.

From "Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy" by Gary D. Schmidt

Scientists are pointing to a glacier collapse as a key cause of the deadly floods that have swept through parts of Nepal and Tibet.

From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026

El Niño is an awe-inspiringly complicated network of relationships across air and ocean, tying snowfall in Chile with drought in Papua New Guinea and connecting floods in Texas with Antarctic sea ice.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026

Catastrophic flash floods along the Nepal-China border have killed at least 353 people and left more than 1,300 missing, sweeping away villages, roads and hydropower facilities.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2026

Anxious relatives crowded the corridors of a Kathmandu hospital Thursday as they searched for missing family after devastating floods on the Nepal-Tibet border killed at least 165 people.

From Barron's ● Aug. 27, 2026

The river flowed out to the land, gentle and docile, and the great floods were eased.

From "When the Sea Turned to Silver" by Grace Lin

As the Taliban entered Kabul, thousands of desperate civilians flooded the airport, overwhelming the gates and creating scenes of chaos and desperation.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026

Footage shared by the broadcaster, which AFP was unable to immediately verify, showed rushing water carrying tree branches and debris, as well as a flooded road.

From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026

A water main break flooded streets in a Westlake neighborhood Thursday, including a nearby homeless encampment that was surrounded by water in the early morning hours.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026

And in the UK, low water levels at a reservoir in Rutland have uncovered the remains of the village of Nether Hambleton, which was demolished and flooded to create the reservoir.

From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2026

“We hitched a ride when our house flooded, like you.”

From "Two Degrees" by Alan Gratz

This in turn exacerbates dangers such as flooding.

From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026

The steep slopes and lush valleys below the Himalayan mountain range — home to many of the world’s highest peaks and remaining glaciers — are especially vulnerable to flooding and landslides.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2026

Within hours of the flooding, Nepal's Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal said an earthquake likely triggered a landslide, in turn blocking a river and sending water gushing downstream.

From Barron's ● Aug. 27, 2026

Even in Nepal, the same region saw flooding last year caused by a glacial lake in Tibet bursting.

From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026

Spring brought rain, and in 1960, everybody was worried about flooding.

From "October Sky" by Homer Hickam

Related Words

• choke
• deluge
• drown
• engulf
• fill
• flow
• overflow
• overwhelm
• rush
• saturate
• swamp
• sweep