Flood

How to spell flood

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce flood

What does flood mean?

1. nounA large amount of water covering land that is normally dry.
2. verbTo cover or fill with water, or to arrive in overwhelming quantity.

Flood in a sentence

• noun

  The river burst its banks and a flood swept through the village.

• verb

  Heavy rain can flood the low fields beside the canal within hours.

• noun

  The insurance policy did not cover damage from the recent flood.

• verb

  Complaints began to flood the helpline after the price rise was announced.

Where does flood come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a thoroughly native English word, descending from the Old English flod, which meant a flowing of water, a tide, or a great overflow. It belongs to the same Germanic family as Dutch vloed and German Flut, and ultimately traces back to the same ancient root that gave us the verb 'to flow'. For centuries it was tied closely to the rise and fall of the sea, so an old tide table might speak of the flood and the ebb. Over time the word narrowed toward its modern sense of water spilling over land, and it broadened figuratively to mean any overwhelming rush, as in a flood of letters or a flood of relief. The spelling is the real trap: the letters 'oo' here are sounded like the 'u' in 'mud' rather than the 'oo' in 'moon', a quirk it shares with its cousin 'blood'.

How the word is built

• flood (from Old English flod: a flowing or rising of water); single native root, no affixes