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Plunge   /pləndʒ/   Listen
noun
Plunge  n.  
1.
The act of thrusting into or submerging; a dive, leap, rush, or pitch into, or as into, water; as, to take the water with a plunge.
2.
Hence, a desperate hazard or act; a state of being submerged or overwhelmed with difficulties. (R.) "She was brought to that plunge, to conceal her husband's murder or accuse her son." "And with thou not reach out a friendly arm, To raise me from amidst this plunge of sorrows?"
3.
The act of pitching or throwing one's self headlong or violently forward, like an unruly horse.
4.
Heavy and reckless betting in horse racing; hazardous speculation. (Cant)
Plunge bath, an immersion by plunging; also, a large bath in which the bather can wholly immerse himself.
Plunge battery, or plunging battery (Elec.), a voltaic battery so arranged that the plates can be plunged into, or withdrawn from, the exciting liquid at pleasure.


verb
Plunge  v. t.  (past & past part. plunged; pres. part. plunging)  
1.
To thrust into water, or into any substance that is penetrable; to immerse; to cause to penetrate or enter quickly and forcibly; to thrust; as, to plunge the body into water; to plunge a dagger into the breast. Also used figuratively; as, to plunge a nation into war. "To plunge the boy in pleasing sleep." "Bound and plunged him into a cell." "We shall be plunged into perpetual errors."
2.
To baptize by immersion.
3.
To entangle; to embarrass; to overcome. (Obs.) "Plunged and graveled with three lines of Seneca."


Plunge  v. i.  
1.
To thrust or cast one's self into water or other fluid; to submerge one's self; to dive, or to rush in; as, he plunged into the river. Also used figuratively; as, to plunge into debt. "Forced to plunge naked in the raging sea." "To plunge into guilt of a murther."
2.
To pitch or throw one's self headlong or violently forward, as a horse does. "Some wild colt, which... flings and plunges."
3.
To bet heavily and with seeming recklessness on a race, or other contest; in an extended sense, to risk large sums in hazardous speculations. (Cant)
Plunging fire (Gun.), firing directed upon an enemy from an elevated position.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Plunge" Quotes from Famous Books



... summoned all those who claimed to belong to any family whose claim was disputed to appear at Amakashi and show that they were entitled to the names they claimed. He placed jars of boiling water and required each one to plunge his hand in the water. He who was injured by the hot water was pronounced a deceiver, and he who came off unhurt was pronounced as entitled to the name. The emperor took occasion to settle the questions concerning names, and put the matter on a more stable basis. ...
— Japan • David Murray
... with her in five minutes if she could have been got to listen, but Mrs. Bilton couldn't be got to listen; and when it became clear that no amount of patient waiting would bring him any nearer the end of what she had to say Mr. Twist was forced to take off his coat, as it were, and plunge abruptly into the very middle of her flow of words and convey to her as quickly as possible, as one swimming for his life against the stream, that she was engaged. "Engaged, Mrs. Bilton,"—he called out, raising his voice above the sound of Mrs. Bilton's ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... morning. Perhaps Halcyone minded very much. She decided rapidly what to do. If she did not mention it at all, she reasoned, this finely strung girl would know that she guessed it would be painful to her—and that might hurt her pride. It was kinder to plunge in and ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... were eleven tadpoles in a glass globe set in a window full of plants. I remember the eagerness with which I made discoveries about them. It was great fun to plunge my hand into the bowl and feel the tadpoles frisk about, and to let them slip and slide between my fingers. One day a more ambitious fellow leaped beyond the edge of the bowl and fell on the floor, where I found him ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... in cases of doubt, upon God. By the ordeal, if a homicide, for example, were committed, and the accused denied his guilt, he was summoned to appear, and then, after a solemn reference to God by the ecclesiastics in charge, he was caused either to carry a red-hot iron bar a certain distance or to plunge his arms in boiling water. If he were found, after a certain length of time, during which his arms were bandaged, to have been injured, he was held to have been guilty. If he had escaped unhurt he was innocent. Gradually, however, the ordeal began to fall into ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams


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