DEVOUR • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Devour

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/dɪvˈaʊər/ Listen

verb

Devour v. t. (past & past part. devoured; pres. part. devouring)

To eat up with greediness; to consume ravenously; to feast upon like a wild beast or a glutton; to prey upon. "Some evil beast hath devoured him."

To seize upon and destroy or appropriate greedily, selfishly, or wantonly; to consume; to swallow up; to use up; to waste; to annihilate. "Famine and pestilence shall devour him." "I waste my life and do my days devour."

To enjoy with avidity; to appropriate or take in eagerly by the senses. "Longing they look, and gaping at the sight, Devour her o'er with vast delight."

Synonyms: To consume; waste; destroy; annihilate.

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Etymology of 'Devour'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Devour" Quotes from Famous Books

... to convince him of his danger, and then he perceived that the lady, who called herself daughter to an Indian king, was a hogress, wife to one of those savage demons called hogress, who live in remote places, and make use of a thousand wiles to surprise and devour passengers; so that the prince, being thus frightened, mounted his horse as soon ...

— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... war against Texas, and expressed his firm conviction that we should see the Comanche Indians on the streets of Mexico one of these days; at which savage tribe he appeared to have a most devout horror; describing to a gaping audience the manner in which he had seen a party of them devour ...

— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... almost vertically below us and past us and up towards the valley of the Meien Reuss. There were one or two Utopians cutting and packing the flowery mountain grass in the carefully levelled and irrigated meadows by means of swift, light machines that ran on things like feet and seemed to devour the herbage, and there were many children and a woman or so, going to and fro among the houses near at hand. I guessed a central building towards the high road must be the school from which these children were coming. I noted the health ...

— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... to save. The Pharaohs knew him, and when Greece beheld, His wisdom wore the hoary crown of Eld. Beauty he hath forsworn, and wealth and power. Seek him to-day, and find in every land. No fire consumes him, neither floods devour; Immortal through the lamp ...

— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... and Sampson generalised; he plunged from the seaside novel into the sea of fiction. He rechristened that joyous art Feckshin, and lashed its living professors. "You devour their three volumes greedily," said he, "but after your meal you feel as empty as a drum; there is no leading idea in 'um; now there always is—in Moliere; and he comprehended the midicine of his age. But what fundamental truth d'our novelists iver convey? All they ...

— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

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