devour
verbUK /dɪˈvaʊə(ɹ)/ · US /dɪˈvaʊɚ/
Etymology Inherited from Middle English devouren, from Old French devorer (Modern French dévorer), from Latin dēvorō, from vorō.
1
To eat quickly, greedily, hungrily, or ravenously.
- Once constituted, capital reproduces itself faster than output increases. The past devours the future.2017 [2013], Thomas Piketty, translated by Arthur Goldhammer, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Belknap Press, →ISBN, page 571:
2
Idiomatic To rapidly destroy, engulf, or lay waste.
- The fire was devouring the building.
- If ye refuse[…]ye shall be devoured with the sword.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 1:20:
1 more example
- 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.2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion:
3
Idiomatic To take in avidly with the intellect or with one's gaze.
- 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.1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter I (Anarchy), page 373, column 2:
1 more example
- 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.2026 April 1, Vitali Vitaliev, “Literature on the track”, in RAIL, number 1058, page 68:
4
Idiomatic To absorb or engross the mind fully, especially in a destructive manner.
- After the death of his wife, he was devoured by grief.
5
Internet Synonym of eat: to be very good at something; to slay.
- She devoured! She left no crumbs!
- Derived terms
- all-devouring, devourable, devourer, devouringly, devouringness, devourment, interdevour, undevoured
- Related terms
- voracious