Devour

How to spell devour

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce devour

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does devour mean?

1. verbTo eat something hungrily and quickly, or to consume something eagerly as if hungry for it.

Devour in a sentence

• The children would devour a whole pizza within minutes of getting home.

• She likes to devour a thriller in a single sitting on a long flight.

Where does devour come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This verb comes from the Latin devorare, meaning 'to swallow down' or 'to consume greedily', built from the intensive prefix de-, here suggesting completeness or thoroughness, and the verb vorare, which literally meant 'to swallow' or 'to gulp'. English took it in during the 1300s through Old French devorer, keeping the sense of eating ravenously and quickly. The same vorare root feeds a family of familiar words: a carnivore eats flesh, an omnivore eats everything, and a voracious reader has a hungry appetite for books. That literary appetite explains the modern figurative use, where someone may devour a novel as eagerly as a meal. The English spelling keeps the French-style -our ending, which is the small trap worth remembering, since the stress falls on that final syllable.

How the word is built

• de- (down, completely)
• vour (from Latin vorare: to swallow, to gulp)