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flood

[ fluhd ]
/ flʌd /
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See synonyms for: flood / flooded / flooding on Thesaurus.com

noun
verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
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Origin of flood

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

synonym study for flood

1. 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 WORDS FROM flood

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use flood in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for flood (1 of 3)

flood
/ (flʌd) /

noun
verb

Derived forms of flood

floodable, adjectiveflooder, nounfloodless, adjective

Word Origin for flood

Old English flōd; related to Old Norse flōth, Gothic flōdus, Old High German fluot flood, Greek plōtos navigable; see flow, float

British Dictionary definitions for flood (2 of 3)

Flood1
/ (flʌd) /

noun
the Flood 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

British Dictionary definitions for flood (3 of 3)

Flood2
/ (flʌd) /

noun
Henry . 1732–91, Anglo-Irish politician: leader of the parliamentary opposition to English rule
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Scientific definitions for flood

flood
[ flŭd ]

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.♦ 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.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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