| 释义 |
inundate, v.|ˈɪnʌndeɪt, ɪˈnʌndeɪt|
[f. ppl. stem of L. inundāre (f. in- (in-2) + undāre to flow): see -ate3.
The stress is now mostly on the first syllable, though this is not found in the dictionaries before c 1880; later dicts. still give preference to iˈnundate. See note to contemplate.]
1. trans. To overspread with a flood of water; to overflow, flood.
1791W. Beloe Herodotus ii. Note 39. 240 During the period when the Nile inundates ægypt. 1796H. Hunter tr. St.-Pierre's Stud. Nat. (1799) I. 169 To produce an annual overflow of the Amazon..and to inundate a great part of Brasil. 1898T. B. Maclachlan Mungo Park viii. 64 The rivers were overflowing their banks and inundating the land.
2. transf. and fig. To fill with an overflowing abundance or superfluity; to overwhelm, ‘swamp’.
1623Cockeram, Inundated, ouerwhelmed. 1667Waterhouse Fire Lond. 67 God has..strengthened the sphere and activity of the Fire to inundate things sacred and civil. 1798Washington Lett. Writ. 1893 XIV. 60, I was inundated with letters, describing the crisis. 1831–3E. Burton Eccl. Hist. xi. (1845) 266 That strange mixture of opinions which were now inundating the world under the name of Gnosticism. 1849Cobden Speeches 80, I say inundate Ireland with Indian corn and good wheat.
Hence inundated ppl. a., flooded.
1875Lyell Princ. Geol. II. iii. xl. 395 Columbus and other navigators, who first encountered these banks of Algae, compared them to vast inundated meadows. |