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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

devour.

To eat quickly, greedily, hungrily, or ravenously.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/dɪˈvaʊə(ɹ)/UK/dɪˈvaʊɚ/US
  1. To eat quickly, greedily, hungrily, or ravenously.

    transitive
  2. To rapidly destroy, engulf, or lay waste.

    idiomatic · transitive
    The fire was devouring the building.
  3. To take in avidly with the intellect or with one's gaze.

    idiomatic · transitive
    She intended to devour the book.
  4. To absorb or engross the mind fully, especially in a destructive manner.

    idiomatic · transitive
    After the death of his wife, he was devoured by grief.
  5. Synonym of eat: to be very good at something; to slay.

    Internet · intransitive
    She devoured! She left no crumbs!
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle English devouren, from Old French devorer (Modern French dévorer), from Latin dēvorō, from vorō.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.