Word.ws English Dictionary

swamping

swamping is the present participle and gerund of swamp.

Meaning of swamp

Verb

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

  1. To drench or fill with water.
    • The boat was swamped in the storm.
  2. (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.
  3. (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
  4. (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

See all 7 meanings of swamp

Noun

swamping (plural swampings)

  1. An act of swamping (drenching or filling with water).
    • Before the report’s arrival on Friday, the consequences of global warming had been epically imagined — New Orleans-style swampings by superstorms, the specter of an Arctic meltdown and a water gush that would block heat-toting currents in the Atlantic Ocean and trigger an abrupt European cool-down.2007 February 4, Andrew C. Revkin, “A Disaster Epic (in Slo-Mo)”, in New York Times

Forms of swamping

pluralswampings

Phrases with swamping

Questions about swamping

What does swamping mean?
Swamping means an act of swamping (drenching or filling with water).
What is swamping the present participle and gerund of?
Swamping is the present participle and gerund of swamp.
What part of speech is swamping?
Swamping is a noun.
What is the plural of swamping?
The plural of swamping is swampings.

Words near swamping in the dictionary

  1. swamphens
  2. swampier
  3. swampiest
  4. swampily
  5. swampiness
  6. swamping
  7. swamping out
  8. swampings
  9. swampish
  10. swampishness
  11. swampland

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swamping (page history and authors); swamp (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:

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