swamp
- a tract of wet, spongy land, often having a growth of certain types of trees and other vegetation, but unfit for cultivation.
- to flood or drench with water or the like.
- Nautical. to sink or fill (a boat) with water.
- to plunge or cause to sink in or as if in a swamp.
- to overwhelm, especially to overwhelm with an excess of something: He swamped us with work.
- to render helpless.
- to remove trees and underbrush from (a specific area), especially to make or cleave a trail (often followed by out).
- to trim (felled trees) into logs, as at a logging camp or sawmill.
- to fill with water and sink, as a boat.
- to sink or be stuck in a swamp or something likened to a swamp.
- to be plunged into or overwhelmed with something, especially something that keeps one busy, worried, etc.
Origin of swamp
Related Words for swamped
drench, inundate, besiege, saturate, overload, beset, wash, drown, engulf, submerge, overflow, sink, overcrowd, satiate, surfeit, crowd, upset, snow, submerse, whelmExamples from the Web for swamped
Contemporary Examples of swamped
No one in Washington listened, and Sequoyah was swamped by the establishment of Oklahoma in 1907.
The Daily Pic: In 1913, New Yorker Robert Winthrop Chandler was a successful radical, until he got swamped by Matisse and Duchamp.
The couple were swamped with phone-waving well-wishers and extra police had to be called in at one stage as numbers swelled.
But in the past decade the city of less than 60,000 inhabitants has been swamped with over 20 million visitors each year.
Howard Kurtz talks to Michael Steele about the decision that swamped the convention.
Michael Steele Calls Critics of His Choice of Tampa for GOP Convention ‘Stupid’Howard Kurtz
August 27, 2012
Historical Examples of swamped
At one moment you might have thought it swamped, for no sign of it could be detected.
The Three Cities Trilogy, CompleteEmile Zola
It was one of those moments when a man's hope is swamped in present difficulties.
The Cruise of the Dry DockT. S. Stribling
In the uproar forward, Madden heard the cries: "Th' dinghy's swamped!"
The Cruise of the Dry DockT. S. Stribling
Her pupils had dilated until the irises were swamped in black.
The Education of Eric LaneStephen McKenna
I 'm just as hurried as that boy of yours was when he swamped the powder-magazine.
BarringtonCharles James Lever
swamp
- permanently waterlogged ground that is usually overgrown and sometimes partly forestedCompare marsh
- (as modifier)swamp fever
- to drench or submerge or be drenched or submerged
- nautical to cause (a boat) to sink or fill with water or (of a boat) to sink or fill with water
- to overburden or overwhelm or be overburdened or overwhelmed, as by excess work or great numberswe have been swamped with applications
- to sink or stick or cause to sink or stick in or as if in a swamp
- (tr) to render helpless
Word Origin for swamp
Word Origin and History for swamped
swamp
1624 (first used by Capt. John Smith, in reference to Virginia), perhaps a dialectal survival from an Old English cognate of Old Norse svoppr "sponge, fungus," from Proto-Germanic *swampuz; but traditionally connected with Middle English sompe "morass, swamp," probably from Middle Dutch somp or Middle Low German sump "swamp." Related to Old Norse svöppr "sponge." Swamp Yankee "rural, rustic New Englander" is attested from 1941.
swamp
"overwhelm, sink (as if in a swamp)," 1772, from swamp (n.). Figurative sense is from 1818. Related: Swamped; swamping.
swamp
- An area of low-lying wet or seasonally flooded land, often having trees and dense shrubs or thickets.