DEVOUR

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does devour mean? 

• DEVOUR (verb)
  The verb DEVOUR has 4 senses:

1. destroy completely

2. enjoy avidly

3. eat up completely, as with great appetite

4. eat greedily

  Familiarity information: DEVOUR used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DEVOUR (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they devour    ... he / she / it devours   
Past simple: devoured   
Past participle: devoured   
-ing form: devouring   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Destroy completely

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Context example:

Fire had devoured our home

Hypernyms (to "devour" is one way to...):

destroy; ruin (destroy completely; damage irreparably)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s something

Sense 2

Meaning:

Enjoy avidly

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Context example:

She devoured his novels

Hypernyms (to "devour" is one way to...):

bask; enjoy; relish; savor; savour (derive or receive pleasure from; get enjoyment from; take pleasure in)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sense 3

Meaning:

Eat up completely, as with great appetite

Classified under:

Verbs of eating and drinking

Synonyms:

consume; demolish; devour; down; go through

Context example:

The teenagers demolished four pizzas among them

Hypernyms (to "devour" is one way to...):

eat up; finish; polish off (finish eating all the food on one's plate or on the table)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s somebody

Sentence example:

They devour more bread

Derivation:

devourer (someone who eats greedily or voraciously)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Eat greedily

Classified under:

Verbs of eating and drinking

Synonyms:

devour; guttle; pig; raven

Context example:

he devoured three sandwiches

Hypernyms (to "devour" is one way to...):

eat (take in solid food)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

They devour more bread

 Context examples 

Withdrawn from the immediate scramble of the other dogs—in fact out of sight behind a thicket—he was devouring his prize, when Baseek rushed in upon him.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

You have devoured all when you were standing godmother.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Have you seen that awful den of hellish infamy—with the very moonlight alive with grisly shapes, and every speck of dust that whirls in the wind a devouring monster in embryo?

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I held that life was a ferment, a yeasty something which devoured life that it might live, and that living was merely successful piggishness.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He caught it up, devoured it with his eyes, and then danced madly about the room, pressing it to his bosom and shrieking out in his delight.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He walked up to the sideboard, and tearing a piece from the loaf he devoured it voraciously, washing it down with a long draught of water.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Spider-like cells inside the brain, spinal cord and eye hunt for invaders, capturing and then devouring them.

(In blinding eye disease, trash-collecting cells go awry, accelerate damage, NIH)

The microglial cells are responsible for clearing out old and worn out cells via a process called phagocytosis - meaning "to devour" in Greek.

(Lack of Sleep Makes Brain to Literally Eat Itself, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

The newly found black hole is voraciously devouring material at the center of a galaxy — a phenomenon called a quasar.

(Most Distant Black Hole, NASA)

I devoured my bread and drank my coffee with relish; but I should have been glad of as much more—I was still hungry.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)