engulf

present singular third person engulfs · participle present engulfing · participle past engulfed · past engulfed

1. transitiveTo overwhelm.

   Depression engulfed her after her daughter's death.

   2 more examples

   Shaken by the biggest challenge to their authority in years, Brazil’s leaders made conciliatory gestures on Tuesday to try to defuse the protests engulfing the nation’s cities.

   2013 June 18, Simon Romero, “Protests Widen as Brazilians Chide Leaders”, in New York Times, retrieved 21 Jun 2013

   The blank spaces of Mallarmé, the silence of Maesterlinck, the inaniloquous repetitive babblings of Gertrude Stein are the abyss which threatens to engulf creative effort if it continues in this direction.

   1934, The Modern Monthly, volume 8, page 308

2. transitiveTo surround; to cover; to submerge.

   Only Noah and his family survived when the Flood engulfed the world.

   Synonyms: swallow

3. transitiveTo cast into a gulf.