engulf

Etymology

It is formed from English en- + gulf,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} though the OED compares French engouffrer, earlier engoulfer, as a possible source,^[2] and Etymonline names Old French engolfer as the alternative.^[8] The noun gulf is from Old French golf (“a gulf, whirlpool”),^[8][9] from Italian golfo (“a gulf, a bay”),^[8][9][6] from Ancient Greek κόλπος (kólpos, “bosom, fold, gulf”).^[8][9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

To swallow up in a gulf, abyss or whirlpool: 1555, in R. Eden's translation of Peter Martyr.^[2][3] Etymonline likewise dates it to the 1550s,^[8] and Dictionary.com to 1545–55.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The verb was first used of seas, whirlpools and the like, and by 1711 of fire and other mediums.^[8] A figurative use, of being overwhelmed or deeply plunged into something, appears from the 1590s.^[8][2][4] A short-lived sense, to cut a coast into gulfs or bays, is recorded only in W. Lithgow (1632).^[2] A river could be said from 1634 to engulf itself in the sea or to disappear underground.^[2][4] The chiefly humorous use for burying something completely, as if in an abyss, dates from 1829.^[2] The verb is also used of an organism that takes in food by flowing around it.^[3]

Timeline

• 1555 – to swallow up in a gulf or whirlpool.^[2][3]
• 1597 – figurative use.^[2] Etymonline dates it to the 1590s.^[8]
• 1632 – to cut into gulfs or bays (rare, obsolete).^[2]
• 1634 – of a river, to discharge itself into the sea, or to disappear underground.^[2]
• 1711 – of fire and other mediums.^[8]
• 1829 – to bury completely as if in an abyss (chiefly humorous).^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To flow over and enclose; to swallow up or immerse completely: Floodwater engulfed the lower town.^{[10][3][2][4]}
2. To overwhelm: A wave of grief engulfed the widower.^[10][3][4]
3. To plunge oneself deeply into something: He engulfed himself in the family's quarrels.^[3][2]
4. Of an organism, to take in food by flowing around it or by swallowing it whole: The cell engulfs the bacterium.^[3]
5. Of a river, reflexive or in the passive, to discharge into the sea or vanish underground.^[2][4]

Word family

• engulfment

Related words

• gulf

Usage notes

The spelling ingulf is a variant,^[10][7] which the Shorter Oxford calls archaic; it marks engulph as obsolete.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins