swamp

UK/ˈswɒmp//ˈswɑmp/

swamp noun: an area of wet (water-saturated), spongy (soft) land, often with trees, generally a rich ecosystem for certain plants and animals but ill-suited for many agricultural purposes. (A type of wetland. Compare marsh, bog, fen.).

Image: HoroshilovAleksandr, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

swamp (plural swamps)

An area of wet (water-saturated), spongy (soft) land, often with trees, generally a rich ecosystem for certain plants and animals but ill-suited for many agricultural purposes. (A type of wetland. Compare marsh, bog, fen.)
- Some small Marshes and Swamps there are, but more profitable than hurtfull.1624, John Smith, Virginia IV., page 163
- The vast swamps of Southern Ontario proved a grim nightmare to the construction gangs. Treacherous and seemingly bottomless, the swamps swallowed thousands of tons of timber and debris, yet still afforded no firm surface on which the track could be laid.1954 February, Trevor Holloway, “Canada's Transcontinental Routes”, in Railway Magazine, page 128
(figuratively) A place or situation that is foul or where progress is difficult.
- We two...in this swamp of iniquity...together we can bring redress to an unjust world.2017, Cassandra Clark, Alchemist of Netley Abbey
(US) The alleged corruption, cronyism, inefficiency, and entrenched interests in the federal government, especially in Washington, DC.
- On InfoWars, Alex Jones told his audience, "This is over the top sickening. Next they'll say Jeffrey Epstein never even existed. This is the swamp winning. No one is buying this."2025 July 10, Jesus Mesa, “'We've Been Played': MAGA Faces Its Own Disappointment With Trump”, in Newsweek

Verb

swamp (third-person singular simple present swamps, present participle swamping, simple past and past participle swamped)

To drench or fill with water.
- The boat was swamped in the storm.
(figuratively) To overwhelm; to make too busy, or overrun the capacity of.
- I have been swamped with paperwork ever since they started using the new system.
- "I'm being swamped now with calls from parents and young people who are upset that there are not many options for employment this summer," he said.1991 May 5, Stewart Ain, “Bottom Falls Out Of Summer Job Market”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
(figuratively) To plunge into difficulties and perils; to overwhelm; to ruin; to wreck.
- The Whig majority of the house of Lords was swamped by the creation of twelve Tory peers.1874, John Richard Green, A Short History of the English People
- Having swamped himself in following the ignis fatuus of a theory[…]c. 1835, William Hamilton, “Metaphysics and Moral Science”, in Edinburgh Review
(Appalachia) To clear (a road or an area) of brush, particularly so as to create a path for loggers to be able to access trees.
- Nothing to it but clearing out underbrush and limbs so teams can get to the logs. […] If anyone asks, just tell him you've swamped roads ever since you was big enough to lift a hatchet.1954, W. E. Blackhurst, Riders of the Flood, page 27
- I guess I've done it all. Drove teams, drove grabs (device used to fasten a trail of logs together), swamped (cleared the ground of underbrush and fallen trees for road construction).1976, Alicia Tyler, “Doin' a man's work”: Logging in central and southern counties between 1918 and 1930, page 26

swamp meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

swamp in Hindi

type of wetland: दलदल daldal

swamp in Tamil

சதுப்பு நிலம்

swamp in Urdu

type of wetland: دَلْدَل daldal

swamp in Bengali

type of wetland: জলা jola

More languagesFewer languages

swamp in Malayalam: ചതുപ്പ് catuppŭ
swamp in Kannada: ಜವುಳು, ಜವುಗು, ಕೆಸರು ನೆಲ, ಜವುಗು ನೆಲ
swamp in Punjabi: جھیل jhīl, ਝੀਲ jhīl
swamp in Gujarati: કળણ kaḷaṇ, ઝીલ jhīl
swamp in Sinhala: විල්ලු willu
swamp in Pashto: باطلاق bātlãq, پلندۍ, دلدل daldal, دلدل زار daldal zār
swamp in Tagalog: pinak
swamp in Arabic: مُسْتَنْقَع mustanqaʕ
swamp in Malay: tanah paya, paya
swamp in Indonesian: rawa-rawa, rawa, paya
swamp in Thai: บึง bʉng, หนอง nɔ̌ɔng, กระพัง grà-pang, มาบ mâap
swamp in Vietnamese: đầm lầy
swamp in Myanmar: စိမ့် cim., ပြားတော pra:tau:

Examples of swamp in a sentence

Spitzer’s defeat of his Democratic opponent […] ended a primary season in which Hillary Rodham Clinton swamped an antiwar challenger for renomination to the Senate.2006 September 13, Patrick Healy, “Spitzer and Clinton Win in N.Y. Primary”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
It was only the outstanding Cech that stood between Arsenal and a second-half rout as Spurs simply swamped their opponents after the break with a formidable display of power, pace and sheer intensity.2018 February 10, Phil McNulty, “Tottenham Hotspur 1 - 0 Arsenal”, in BBC:
All is well until Treorchy, where the platform is swamped by teenagers who have been attending an event.2024 November 13, Paul Bigland, “Much to admire... but pockets of neglect”, in RAIL, number 1022, page 48:

All 40 example sentences with swamp

Forms of swamp

Noun
plural	swamps
alternative form (obsolete)	swomp
Verb
third-person singular present	swamps
present participle	swamping
past participle	swamped
past	swamped

Past tense of swamp: swamped

Plural of swamp: swamps

Origin of swamp

Early attestations (starting in 1624) are from North America, but the term was probably in local use in Britain earlier. The etymology is not entirely certain; it is probably a fusion of Middle English swam (“swamp, muddy pool, bog, marsh”, also “fungus, mushroom”) — from Old English swamm (“mushroom, fungus, sponge”), from Proto-West Germanic *swamm, from Proto-Germanic *swambaz, *swammaz — and Middle English sompe (“marsh, morass”), from either Middle Dutch somp, sump (“marsh, swamp”) or Middle Low German sump (“marsh, swamp”) (from Old Saxon *sump (“swamp, marsh”)), both from Proto-West Germanic *sump, from Proto-Germanic *sumpaz. *Swambaz, *swammaz and *sumpaz are likely related to each other, but it is unclear whether they are of Indo-European origin or are substrate words or wanderworts. The word has alternatively been suggested to be a borrowing from Dutch zwamp (“swamp, marsh, fen”). Other cognates include Middle Low German swamp (“sponge, mushroom”), Dutch zomp (“swamp, lake, marshy place”), German Low German Sump (“swamp, bog, marsh”), German Sumpf (“swamp”), Swedish sump (“swamp”). Related also to Dutch zwam (“fungus, punk, tinder”), German Schwamm (“mushroom, fungus...

Words formed from swamp

Phrases with swamp

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Words that rhyme with swamp

Questions about swamp

What does swamp mean?: Swamp means an area of wet (water-saturated), spongy (soft) land, often with trees, generally a rich ecosystem for certain plants and animals but ill-suited for many agricultural purposes. (A type of wetland. Compare marsh, bog, fen.).
What is swamp in Hindi?: Swamp in Hindi is दलदल (daldal). See Swamp meaning in Hindi.
How do you use swamp in a sentence?: Spitzer’s defeat of his Democratic opponent […] ended a primary season in which Hillary Rodham Clinton swamped an antiwar challenger for renomination to the Senate.
What part of speech is swamp?: Swamp can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce swamp?: Swamp is pronounced /ˈswɒmp/ (UK).
What is the plural of swamp?: The plural of swamp is swamps.

Words near swamp in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: swamp (page history and authors); swamp (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); swamp (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); جھیل (Punjabi) (page history and authors); કળણ (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-swamp.ogg.

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