swamp
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
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to flood or drench with water or the like.
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Nautical. to sink or fill (a boat) with water.
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to plunge or cause to sink in or as if in a swamp.
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to overwhelm, especially to overwhelm with an excess of something.
He swamped us with work.
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to render helpless.
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to remove trees and underbrush from (a specific area), especially to make or cleave a trail (often followed byout ).
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to trim (felled trees) into logs, as at a logging camp or sawmill.
verb (used without object)
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to fill with water and sink, as a boat.
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to sink or be stuck in a swamp or something likened to a swamp.
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to be plunged into or overwhelmed with something, especially something that keeps one busy, worried, etc.
noun
verb
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to drench or submerge or be drenched or submerged
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nautical to cause (a boat) to sink or fill with water or (of a boat) to sink or fill with water
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to overburden or overwhelm or be overburdened or overwhelmed, as by excess work or great numbers
we have been swamped with applications
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to sink or stick or cause to sink or stick in or as if in a swamp
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(tr) to render helpless
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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swampsimple
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swampssimple
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have swampedperfect
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has swampedperfect
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am swampingprogressive
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are swampingprogressive
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is swampingprogressive
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have been swampingperfect progressive
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has been swampingperfect progressive
Past
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swampedsimple
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had swampedperfect
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was swampingprogressive
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were swampingprogressive
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had been swampingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of swamp
First recorded in 1615–25; from Dutch zwamp “creek, fen”; akin to sump and to Middle Low German swamp, Old Norse svǫppr “sponge”
Explanation
A swamp is an area that floods every year because the land is low. Watch out for alligators if you visit Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana, the largest swamp in the United States. Anyone who has spent time in a busy restaurant kitchen has heard harried chefs cry, "I'm in the weeds!" Such people are in a different kind of swamp — the challenging environment in which too many things need to be done in too short a time. Another way of saying this is, "I'm swamped." Here swamp is a verb that describes being stuck in a seemingly endless situation — you feel like you're stuck in the squishy mud of a real swamp.
Vocabulary lists containing swamp
Physical Geography - Introductory
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Physical Geography - Middle School
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Physical Geography - High School
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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 whole house fans and swamp coolers can suck additional pollutants inside, the department recommends using air purifiers or air conditioners as alternatives when possible.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 4, 2026
Here’s what can’t be denied: The Sunshine State’s reputation as the nation’s dangle, Heaven’s lobby, and a land of swamp creatures and crocodile wrestlers and Disneyworld and Mar-A-Lago and, somehow, Miami.
From Salon ● Jul. 1, 2026
That’s a huge revision, and it was big enough to swamp the effects of reduced consumer spending.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 25, 2026
They designed one to get wet, allowing for a swamp swim that nods to “Apocalypse Now.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
Instead, he determined the companions would travel some distance from the edges of the swamp, keeping to solid ground and following a path half-circling the bog until they reached the moors.
From "The Black Cauldron" by Lloyd Alexander
The world-renowned site features iron carbonate concretions that formed some 309 million years ago, fossilizing within them ancient creatures that had once thrived in the area's lush swamps, shallow seas and river deltas.
From Barron's ● Jun. 18, 2026
To conduct the study, Koparde and his team had to hike to remote locations and through difficult terrain, like moss-covered riverbanks and mangrove swamps.
From BBC ● May 2, 2026
The energy released by the blast may have also created small depressions in the ground that later filled with water, forming today's swamps and lakes.
From Science Daily ● Dec. 19, 2025
That figure swamps the second-place service, Disney, with only a 10% share.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 16, 2025
Paths were few and winding, and led them often only to the edge of some sheer fall, or down into treacherous swamps.
From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Recruiters and HR offices are swamped with applications that people churn out with job-search platforms and AI agents.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 15, 2026
Attorneys are swamped with threats against public figures.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 7, 2026
The losses swamped the pickup in yields, leading to total-return losses.
From Barron's ● May 21, 2026
As a result, the city has been swamped with a mounting backlog of streetlight repairs — more than 33,000.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 8, 2026
The algorithm is a rule that protects the doctors from being swamped with too much information—the same way that the rule of agreement protects improv actors when they get up onstage.
From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
Its competitors have accused it of irregular business practices, including winning illegal tax breaks in Kenya and swamping the market with bikes before the battery infrastructure is in place to handle the load.
From Barron's ● Jun. 30, 2026
He began gaining renown as a lawyer in an era when asbestos cases were swamping the U.S. courts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 28, 2026
"If a tidal wave of Chinese exports ends up swamping those markets and damaging employment and jobs … that's a massive diplomatic and geopolitical headache for the Chinese leadership."
From BBC ● Apr. 17, 2025
The worst flu season in years is swamping California, prompting a renewed surge in hospitalizations as officials warn the disease could continue circulating at high levels for weeks to come.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 11, 2025
Waves crashed against it, swamping it for a moment before surging away, leaving it bold and grimly reaching upward.
From "City of the Plague God" by Sarwat Chadda
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.
