Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Devour
De-vour′
,Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Devoured
; p. pr. & vb. n.
Devouring
.] 1.
To eat up with greediness; to consume ravenously; to feast upon like a wild beast or a glutton; to prey upon.
Some evil beast hath
devoured
him. Gen. xxxvii. 20.
2.
To seize upon and destroy or appropriate greedily, selfishly, or wantonly; to consume; to swallow up; to use up; to waste; to annihilate.
Famine and pestilence shall
devour
him. Ezek. vii. 15.
I waste my life and do my days
devour
. Spenser.
3.
To enjoy with avidity; to appropriate or take in eagerly by the senses.
Syn. – To consume; waste; destroy; annihilate.
Webster 1828 Edition
Devour
DEVOUR
,Verb.
T.
1.
To eat up; to eat with greediness; to eat ravenously, as a beast of prey, or as a hungry man.We will say, some evil beast hath devoured him. Genesis 37.
In the morning, he shall devour the prey. Genesis 49.
2.
To destroy; to consume with rapidity and violence.I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, which shall devour the palaces of Ben-Hadad. Amos 1.
Famine and pestilence shall devour him. Ezekiel 7.
3.
To destroy; to annihilate; to consume.He seemed in swiftness to devour the way.
4.
To waste; to consume; to spend in dissipation and riot.As soon as this thy son had come, who hath devoured thy living with harlots. Luke 15.
5.
To consume wealth and substance by fraud, oppression, or illegal exactions.Ye devour widows houses. Matthew 23.
6.
To destroy spiritually; to ruin the soul.Your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. 1 Peter 5.
7.
To slay.The sword shall devour the young lions. Nahum 2.
8.
To enjoy with avidity.Longing they look, and gaping at the sight, devour her oer and oer with vast delight.
Definition 2024
devour
devour
English
Verb
devour (third-person singular simple present devours, present participle devouring, simple past and past participle devoured)
- To eat quickly, greedily, hungrily, or ravenously.
- To rapidly destroy, engulf, or lay waste.
- The fire was devouring the building.
- Bible, Isaiah i. 20
- If ye refuse […] ye shall be devoured with the sword.
- 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion:
- Blast after blast, fiery outbreak after fiery outbreak, like a flaming barrage from within, […] most of Edison's grounds soon became an inferno. As though on an incendiary rampage, the fires systematically devoured the contents of Edison's headquarters and facilities.
- To take in avidly with the intellect.
- She intended to devour the book.
- 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, Nobody, chapter I:
- Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to "Chat of the Social World," gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl's intelligence. She devoured with more avidity than she had her food those pretentiously phrased chronicles of the snobocracy […] distilling therefrom an acid envy that robbed her napoleon of all its savour.
- To absorb or engross the mind fully, especially in a destructive manner.
- After the death of his wife, he was devoured by grief.
Synonyms
Translations
to eat greedily
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to rapidly destroy, engulf or lay waste
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to take in avidly
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to absorb or engross the mind fully
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