Devour

/dɪˈvaʊə(ɹ)/ · verb

Meaning

(transitive) To eat quickly, greedily, hungrily, or ravenously..

Definitions by Sense

1. (transitive) To eat quickly, greedily, hungrily, or ravenously.
2. (transitive, idiomatic) To rapidly destroy, engulf, or lay waste.
3. (transitive, idiomatic) To take in avidly with the intellect or with one's gaze.
4. (transitive, idiomatic) To absorb or engross the mind fully, especially in a destructive manner.
5. (originally drag slang, Internet slang, intransitive) Synonym of eat: to be very good at something; to slay.

Example Sentences

Once constituted, capital reproduces itself faster than output increases. The past devours the future.

The fire was devouring the building.

If ye refuse[…]ye shall be devoured with the sword.

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.

She intended to devour the book.

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 flavor.

My dreams were largely based on the works of Dickens (his Mugby Junction stories), Thackeray (Jeames on the Gauge Question), and Arthur Conan Doyle, whose Sherlock Holmes stories I kept devouring with gluttonous abandon.

After the death of his wife, he was devoured by grief.

Synonyms for devour

Antonyms for devour

Related Words

Word Forms

• devours
• devouring
• devoured

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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