DELUGE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does deluge mean? 

• DELUGE (noun)
  The noun DELUGE has 3 senses:

1. an overwhelming number or amount

2. a heavy rain

3. the rising of a body of water and its overflowing onto normally dry land

  Familiarity information: DELUGE used as a noun is uncommon.

• DELUGE (verb)
  The verb DELUGE has 3 senses:

1. fill quickly beyond capacity; as with a liquid

2. charge someone with too many tasks

3. fill or cover completely, usually with water

  Familiarity information: DELUGE used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DELUGE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An overwhelming number or amount

Classified under:

Nouns denoting quantities and units of measure

Synonyms:

deluge; flood; inundation; torrent

Context example:

a torrent of abuse

Hypernyms ("deluge" is a kind of...):

batch; deal; flock; good deal; great deal; hatful; heap; lot; mass; mess; mickle; mint; mountain; muckle; passel; peck; pile; plenty; pot; quite a little; raft; sight; slew; spate; stack; tidy sum; wad ((often followed by 'of') a large number or amount or extent)

Derivation:

deluge (charge someone with too many tasks)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A heavy rain

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural phenomena

Synonyms:

cloudburst; deluge; downpour; pelter; soaker; torrent; waterspout

Hypernyms ("deluge" is a kind of...):

rain; rainfall (water falling in drops from vapor condensed in the atmosphere)

Derivation:

deluge (fill or cover completely, usually with water)

deluge (fill quickly beyond capacity; as with a liquid)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The rising of a body of water and its overflowing onto normally dry land

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural phenomena

Synonyms:

alluvion; deluge; flood; inundation

Context example:

plains fertilized by annual inundations

Hypernyms ("deluge" is a kind of...):

geological phenomenon (a natural phenomenon involving the structure or composition of the earth)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "deluge"):

debacle (flooding caused by a tumultuous breakup of ice in a river during the spring or summer)

flash flood; flashflood (a sudden local flood of great volume and short duration)

Noachian deluge; Noah's flood; Noah and the Flood; the Flood ((Biblical) the great deluge that is said in the Book of Genesis to have occurred in the time of Noah; it was brought by God upon the earth because of the wickedness of human beings)

Derivation:

deluge (fill or cover completely, usually with water)

• DELUGE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they deluge    ... he / she / it deluges   
Past simple: deluged   
Past participle: deluged   
-ing form: deluging   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Fill quickly beyond capacity; as with a liquid

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

deluge; flood; inundate; swamp

Context example:

The images flooded his mind

Hypernyms (to "deluge" is one way to...):

fill; fill up; make full (make full, also in a metaphorical sense)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s something with something

Derivation:

deluge (a heavy rain)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Charge someone with too many tasks

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

deluge; flood out; overwhelm

Hypernyms (to "deluge" is one way to...):

burden; charge; saddle (impose a task upon, assign a responsibility to)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Somebody ----s somebody with something

Derivation:

deluge (an overwhelming number or amount)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Fill or cover completely, usually with water

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

deluge; inundate; submerge

Hypernyms (to "deluge" is one way to...):

flood (cover with liquid, usually water)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s something

Sentence example:

The swollen rivers deluge the area with water

Derivation:

deluge (the rising of a body of water and its overflowing onto normally dry land)

deluge (a heavy rain)

 Context examples 

He deluged me, overwhelmed me with argument.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Managing to obtain the addresses of two newspaper syndicates, he deluged them with storiettes.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

So absorbed was he in his thoughts, I remember, that he stumbled over the watering-pot, upset its contents, and deluged both our feet and the garden path.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The last was an awful blank: something like the world when the deluge was gone by.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

A massive black hole at the heart of a distant galaxy has been observed pumping a vast spout of cold molecular gas into space, which then rains back onto the black hole as an intergalactic deluge.

(ALMA and MUSE Detect Galactic Fountain, ESO)

For three days Perrault and François threw chests up and down the main street of Skaguay and were deluged with invitations to drink, while the team was the constant centre of a worshipful crowd of dog-busters and mushers.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

“Grand!” Johnson shouted in my ear, as we successfully came through the attendant deluge, and I knew he referred, not to Wolf Larsen’s seamanship, but to the performance of the Ghost herself.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I briefly related to him what had transpired: the strange laugh I had heard in the gallery: the step ascending to the third storey; the smoke,—the smell of fire which had conducted me to his room; in what state I had found matters there, and how I had deluged him with all the water I could lay hands on.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

And now it is deluged with a nectarous flood—the young germs swamped—delicious poison cankering them: now I see myself stretched on an ottoman in the drawing-room at Vale Hall at my bride Rosamond Oliver's feet: she is talking to me with her sweet voice—gazing down on me with those eyes your skilful hand has copied so well—smiling at me with these coral lips.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I heaved them up, deluged the bed and its occupant, flew back to my own room, brought my own water-jug, baptized the couch afresh, and, by God's aid, succeeded in extinguishing the flames which were devouring it.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)