Word.ws English Dictionary

flood

/flʌd/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northern England/flʊd/

flood noun: an overflow of a large amount of water (usually disastrous) from a lake or other body of water due to excessive rainfall or other input of water.

Noun

flood (plural floods)

  1. An overflow of a large amount of water (usually disastrous) from a lake or other body of water due to excessive rainfall or other input of water.
    • a covenant never to destroy the earth again by flood1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
    • Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations.1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
  2. (figuratively) A large number or quantity of anything appearing more rapidly than can easily be dealt with.
    • a flood of complaints
    • Deregulation of financial markets laid the groundwork for the subprime crisis in the United States, while a badly designed euro contributed to the debt crisis in Greece, and the Schengen system of open borders made it difficult to control the flood of refugees in Europe.2016 December 6, Francis Fukuyama, “The Dangers of Disruption”, in The New York Times
  3. The flowing in of the tide, opposed to the ebb.
    • There is a tide in the affairs of men, / Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • It was ebb tide when she touched, and it was supposed that when the flood made she would float off again.1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 217
  4. A floodlight.
  5. Menstrual discharge; menses.
  6. (obsolete) Water as opposed to land.
    • Who beheld from the safe shore their floating carcasses and broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown, abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood, under amazement of their hideous change.1667, John Milton, “(please specify the page number)”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker...

Verb

flood (third-person singular simple present floods, present participle flooding, simple past and past participle flooded)

  1. To overflow, as by water from excessive rainfall.
    • People flooded into the streets in protest.
    • The basement flooded with rainwater.
    Synonyms:
    overfill
  2. To cover or partly fill as if by a flood.
    • The floor was flooded with beer.
    • They flooded the room with sewage.
    Synonyms:
    inundate
  3. (figuratively) To provide (someone or something) with a larger number or quantity of something than can easily be dealt with.
    • The station's switchboard was flooded with listeners making complaints.
    • Blackburn offered nothing going forward in the opening period and that continued after the break, encouraging City to flood forward.2011 October 1, David Ornstein, “Blackburn 0 - 4 Man City”, in BBC Sport
    Synonyms:
    inundate, swamp, deluge, spam
  4. (Internet, ambitransitive) To paste numerous lines of text to (a chat system) in order to disrupt the conversation.
    • There's also a spam filter in the code now, so if someone attempts to flood people's screens with macros or a bot, everything after the first few lines is thrown away.1998, Dr. Cat, “Furry web site plug”, in alt.fan.furry (Usenet)
  5. To bleed profusely, as after childbirth.

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Flood

the Flood

  1. The flood referred to in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible.
    • The result of the Dispensation of Conscience was that “all flesh had corrupted his way on the earth;” that “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually ;” and God closed the second testing of the natural man with...
    • Out of the fearful judgment of the Flood God saved eight persons to whom, after the waters were assuaged, He gave the purified earth with ample power to govern it. This, Noah and his descendants were responsible to do.1888, C. I. Scofield, “The Seven Dispensations”, in Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth (2 Tim. 2:15): Ten Outline Studies of The More Important Divisions of Scripture, Second edition (Religion)...
    Synonyms:
    Deluge

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Flood

Flood (plural Floods)

  1. A surname.

flood meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

flood in Hindi

overflow of water
बाढ़ bāṛh, सैलाब sailāb, सैल sail, प्लावन plāvan, वन्या vanyā, जलप्लावन jalaplāvan

flood in Tamil

overflow of water
வெள்ளம் veḷḷam

flood in Marathi

overflow of water
पूर pūr

flood in Urdu

overflow of water
باڑھ bāṛh, سَیلاب sailāb, سَیل sail, طُوفان tūfān
More languagesFewer languages
flood in Bengali
বান ban, সয়লাব śoẏlab, বন্যা bonna
flood in Telugu
వరద varada, వెల్లువ velluva, ముంచెత్తు muñcettu, వెల్లువెత్తు velluvettu
flood in Malayalam
വെള്ളപ്പൊക്കം veḷḷappokkaṁ, പ്രളയം praḷayaṁ
flood in Kannada
ಪ್ರವಾಹ pravāha
flood in Punjabi
ਹੜ੍ਹ haṛh
flood in Gujarati
પૂર pūr
flood in Odia
ବନ୍ୟା banyā
flood in Sanskrit
प्लुति pluti
flood in Sinhala
ගංවතුර gaṁwatura
flood in Assamese
বানপানী banpani, বান ban
flood in Nepali
बाढी bāḍhī
flood in Pashto
نېز nez
flood in Tagalog
baha, binaha, umapaw, mabaha
flood in Arabic
طُوفَان ṭūfān, فَيَضَان fayaḍān, سَيْل sayl
flood in Malay
banjir, bah, ampuh
flood in Indonesian
banjir
flood in Thai
อุทกภัย ù-tók-gà-pai, น้ำท่วม náam-tûuam
flood in Vietnamese
lụt, lụt lội, lũ lụt, lũ
flood in Myanmar
ရေကြီးခြင်း re-kri:hkrang:

Examples of flood in a sentence

  • Floods in northern India, mostly in the small state of Uttarakhand, have wrought disaster on an enormous scale.2013 June 29, “High and wet”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 28:
  • The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for us was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The...
  • The iconic Glenfinnan Viaduct was flooded with blue light to show support for the National Health Service staff treating Coronavirus patients.2020 April 22, “Glenfinnan turns blue to honour NHS workers”, in Rail, page 9:

All 40 example sentences with flood

Synonyms of flood

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of flood

Forms of flood

Noun
pluralfloods
alternative form (obsolete)floud
Verb
third-person singular presentfloods
present participleflooding
past participleflooded
pastflooded
Proper noun
pluralFloods
alternative formFlud

Past tense of flood: flooded

Plural of flood: floods

Origin of flood

Inherited from Middle English flod, from Old English flōd, from Proto-West Germanic *flōdu, from Proto-Germanic *flōduz, from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₃(w)-. Cognate with Scots flude, fluid, Saterland Frisian Floud, Dutch vloed, German Flut, Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish flod, Icelandic flóð, and Gothic 𐍆𐌻𐍉𐌳𐌿𐍃 (flōdus).

Words formed from flood

Phrases with flood

9 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with flood

15 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about flood

What does flood mean?
Flood means an overflow of a large amount of water (usually disastrous) from a lake or other body of water due to excessive rainfall or other input of water.
What is flood in Hindi?
Flood in Hindi is बाढ़ (bāṛh), सैलाब (sailāb), सैल (sail). See Flood meaning in Hindi.
How do you use flood in a sentence?
Floods in northern India, mostly in the small state of Uttarakhand, have wrought disaster on an enormous scale.
What part of speech is flood?
Flood can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce flood?
Flood is pronounced /flʌd/.
What is the plural of flood?
The plural of flood is floods.

Words near flood in the dictionary

  1. flong
  2. flongs
  3. flonker
  4. flonkers
  5. floo
  6. flood
  7. flood basalt
  8. flood basalts
  9. flood chute
  10. flood chutes
  11. flood fill

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: flood (page history and authors); Flood (page history and authors); પૂર (Gujarati) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-flood.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Flood.wav.

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