Word.ws English Dictionary

engulf

/ɪŋˈɡʌlf/

engulf verb: to overwhelm.

Verb

engulf (third-person singular simple present engulfs, present participle engulfing, simple past and past participle engulfed)

  1. (transitive) To overwhelm.
    • Depression engulfed her after her daughter's death.
    • 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
  2. (transitive) To surround; to cover; to submerge.
    • Only Noah and his family survived when the Flood engulfed the world.
    Synonyms:
    swallow
  3. (transitive) To cast into a gulf.

engulf meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

engulf in Tamil

உள்ளமிழ்த்து, விழுங்கு, விழுங்கல்

engulf in Urdu

ہڑپ کرنا

engulf in Bengali

গ্রাস করা, বিলুপ্ত করা

engulf in Malayalam

ജലാവർത്തത്തിൽ നിക്ഷേപിക്കുക, ജലം കയറി മുങ്ങുക
More languagesFewer languages
engulf in Kannada
ನುಂಗಿಬಿಡು, ಸುತ್ತುವರಿ
engulf in Thai
ปกคลุม bpòk-klum, ท่วม tûuam

Examples of engulf in a sentence

  • Then a torrent of rushing bloodwater engulfed the city's humanity, whisking them to their doom.
  • He became oblivious to his surroundings as his recollections engulfed his attention.
  • The icy surface is going to break and you're totally engulfed in the tumult.

All 29 example sentences with engulf

Synonyms of engulf

Forms of engulf

third-person singular presentengulfs
present participleengulfing
past participleengulfed
pastengulfed

Past tense of engulf: engulfed

Origin of engulf

From en- + gulf.

Words formed from engulf

Words that rhyme with engulf

Questions about engulf

What does engulf mean?
Engulf means to overwhelm.
What is engulf in Tamil?
Engulf in Tamil is உள்ளமிழ்த்து, விழுங்கு, விழுங்கல். See Engulf meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is engulf?
Engulf is a verb.
How do you pronounce engulf?
Engulf is pronounced /ɪŋˈɡʌlf/.
What is the past tense of engulf?
The past tense of engulf is engulfed.

Words near engulf in the dictionary

  1. enguard
  2. enguarded
  3. enguarding
  4. enguards
  5. enguiché
  6. engulf
  7. engulfable
  8. engulfasome
  9. engulfasomes
  10. engulfed
  11. engulfer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: engulf (page history and authors); engulf (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); engulf (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); engulf (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); engulf (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); engulf (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-engulf.wav.

Cite this entry: “engulf.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/engulf. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.