immerse
Americanverb (used with object)
-
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:
Rather than spend a week in a nice hotel in Europe, they book an Airbnb in a more remote area to immerse themselves in a country and culture.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
Miyazaki’s tales also tend to immerse us in supernatural domains existing parallel to our own, as if reality masks more ethereal, life-affirming realms.
From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2026
A little further in the future, Landers says, employers could shift to virtual-reality headsets to fully immerse job candidates in the simulations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 16, 2026
Fulgurous cinematic spectacle may immerse your attention, but the opera’s essence is transferred from the stage to the pit.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2026
My response to my problems was to immerse myself in literature.
From "Bad Boy" by Walter Dean Myers
But what’s most gripping about this thorough, scholarly survey is that it immerses viewers in the Celtic aesthetic.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 29, 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
Gaga has called “Mayhem” a series of gothic dreams, and in “The Art of Personal Chaos,” she immerses her audience in these fantasies.
From Salon ● Apr. 16, 2025
The remote-pilot setting immerses the cockpit in a red glow.
From "The Last Cuentista" by Donna Barba Higuera
Visitors to the festival have been immersed in live music sessions, interactive workshops, dance classes and pop-up pubs for the past seven days.
From BBC ● Aug. 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
Many great filmmakers are immersed in the same ideas, returning to them in one way or another with each film.
From Salon ● Jul. 18, 2026
“The plan is you walk into the Hollywood Bowl and you are immersed in the world of Wes Anderson,” Rees says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
Her fingers wrinkled from being immersed in water and, perversely, her mouth dried up with thirst.
From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer
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
"We can levitate objects against gravity by immersing them in a sound field called a standing wave."
From Science Daily ● Mar. 22, 2026
He succeeds in showing their interior world, immersing us in the tensions and pleasures, griefs and passions of their days.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 12, 2026
They escorted moviegoers to other worlds, immersing them in the high-flying, dangerous adventures of Indiana Jones or Ellen Ripley.
From Salon ● Jan. 6, 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.
