submerse
Americanverb (used with object)
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of submerse
First recorded in 1830–40; probably by back formation from submersion ( def. )
Explanation
To submerse is to go below the surface of water. When you watch a seabird submerse, you see it dive completely under water, probably so that it can catch a fish. You can use the verb submerse in much the same way you'd use submerge, to mean "sink or dive under the surface of the water." The meaning of submerse makes sense when you know that a submersible is a small underwater vessel, similar to a submarine. All of these words have the Latin prefix sub- in common, which means "under." Merse comes from the Latin verb "to plunge," mergere .
Vocabulary lists containing submerse
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:
Connelly said take on projects that make you leave your daily existence and submerse yourself in them.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 25, 2022
When you spend time away from the internet, diving back in can feel like choosing to submerse yourself in raw sewage.
From The Verge ● Nov. 13, 2015
Completely exhausted by the intensity of what just happened, I submerse myself underwater for a few long seconds.
From New York Times ● Jan. 23, 2013
"You submerse yourself into 'Who am I and where am I going,'" Kosloski, the girls' athletic director, described it.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 18, 2012
“When the nets are submersed in water, the banana pingers automatically turn on and make a high-pitched sound that dolphins and porpoises are able to hear,” Enever says.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 17, 2022
In the same spirit, he wondered what treasures might be submersed in Bitcoin’s data lake.
From New York Times ● Jun. 6, 2022
Even Lady Gaga, who walked the runway as a model, submersed herself in the clothes.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 19, 2016
Leaves all submersed and similar, mostly sessile, membranaceous and dilated, lanceolate, oblong, or oval; stipules obtuse, becoming loose.
From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa
Seeds 3, pendulous.—Slender, mainly submersed, with opposite or verticillate capillary-dissected leaves, a few floating, alternate and centrally peltate.
From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa
Monitoring the outrage about it on Twitter is akin to submersing one’s head in a bucket of screaming for hours and hours.
From Salon ● Jun. 27, 2018
I told him that in death there is life, and that to me hunting was a way of keeping an ear to the earth and submersing myself into the bloodstream of the wilderness.
From Time Magazine Archive
Never in history has so great a calamity descended so suddenly upon the Human Family, unless we except the earthquake toppling down cities and submersing a whole coast in a single night.
From The Duel Between France and Germany by Sumner, Charles
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.
