swamp
a tract of wet, spongy land, often having a growth of certain types of trees and other vegetation, but unfit for cultivation.
to flood or drench with water or the like.
Nautical. to sink or fill (a boat) with water.
to plunge or cause to sink in or as if in a swamp.
to overwhelm, especially to overwhelm with an excess of something: He swamped us with work.
to render helpless.
to remove trees and underbrush from (a specific area), especially to make or cleave a trail (often followed by out).
to trim (felled trees) into logs, as at a logging camp or sawmill.
to fill with water and sink, as a boat.
to sink or be stuck in a swamp or something likened to a swamp.
to be plunged into or overwhelmed with something, especially something that keeps one busy, worried, etc.
Origin of swamp
1Other words from swamp
- swamp·ish, adjective
- un·der·swamp, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use swamp in a sentence
When I return to the farm, which has been in my family since the 1840s, the past swamps me.
We wound up turning swamps into fields and putting cows on them.
Mississippi Hippos, Teddy Bears, and Other Strange Beasts | Scott Porch | July 25, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThe same is true of the right-wing fever swamps, where “thug” is the favored insult for Barack Obama.
Richard Sherman Is Right: Thug Is the New N-World | Jamelle Bouie | January 27, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThis rhetoric, it should be said, extends beyond the fever swamps of the right wing.
I can assure you that already in the Pavlovian swamps of the nutso right, the glands are swelling.
This strip of land from ocean to ocean abounded in disease-breeding swamps and filthy habitations unfit for human beings.
The Wonder Book of Knowledge | VariousThe roof is supported by granite monoliths from Finland, buried for centuries in deep swamps.
Ways of War and Peace | Delia AustrianNow he sent his boats up through the Yazoo swamps, then they had a fight on the Arkansas River; and in this way he was kept busy.
Stories of Our Naval Heroes | VariousThe species does not grow in nipa swamps, though immediately back of them it will be found well established.
Philippine Mats | Hugo H. MillerThe two journeyed far through the forest, over many rivers and muskegs, through many swamps and ranges of hills.
Blazed Trail Stories | Stewart Edward White
British Dictionary definitions for swamp
/ (swɒmp) /
permanently waterlogged ground that is usually overgrown and sometimes partly forested: Compare marsh
(as modifier): swamp fever
to drench or submerge or be drenched or submerged
nautical to cause (a boat) to sink or fill with water or (of a boat) to sink or fill with water
to overburden or overwhelm or be overburdened or overwhelmed, as by excess work or great numbers: we have been swamped with applications
to sink or stick or cause to sink or stick in or as if in a swamp
(tr) to render helpless
Origin of swamp
1Derived forms of swamp
- swampish, adjective
- swampless, adjective
- swampy, adjective
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for swamp
[ swŏmp ]
An area of low-lying wet or seasonally flooded land, often having trees and dense shrubs or thickets.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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