submerge

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French submerger and directly borrowed from Latin submergō (“to cause to sink, plunge under”).^[2][3][4][5] Several dictionaries name only the Latin verb.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11]} The verb is formed with sub- (“under”) and mergō (“to dip, plunge, immerse”), the source of merge.^[2][3][4][6] The OED dates the French verb to 1393, of a liquid covering something, and before 1498, of immersing something, and compares Old Occitan somerger, Catalan submergir, Spanish sumergir, Portuguese submergir and Italian sommergere.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To cause someone or something to sink under the surface of water: 1490, in Caxton's Eneydos, in the OED's revision of 2012,^[2] which matches Merriam-Webster's 15th century.^[7] Older accounts start much later: Barnhart at 1606, in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra,^[4] Etymonline about 1600,^[3] and the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English in the early 17th century.^[8][10]

Semantic evolution

The word stayed close to its Latin sense at first, in the passive for what is covered by water from 1611,^[2] and Johnson (1755), quoting Antony and Cleopatra, defined it only as "To drown; to put under water".^[12] Figurative use came quickly: to disappear from sight as if under water from 1629,^[2] to be overwhelmed or absorbed from before 1640,^[2] and to hide or restrain something from 1796.^[2] The literal intransitive sense, to sink under water, dates from 1652;^[2][3] Weekley reports that the first edition of the OED described it as rare, but that it became common with submarines.^[13][3] Weekley also credits General Booth's In Darkest England (1890) with the phrase submerged tenth.^[13]

Timeline

• 1490 – to cause to sink under water.^[2][7]
• 1611 – in the passive, to be covered with water.^[2]
• 1629 – figuratively, to disappear as if under water.^[2]
• before 1640 – figuratively, in the passive, to be overwhelmed or concealed.^[2]
• 1652 – intransitive, to sink under water.^[2][3]
• 1796 – figuratively, transitive, to conceal or overwhelm.^[2]
• 1832 – submergence, the state of being submerged.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To put under the surface of water or another liquid: Submerge the jar in hot water to loosen the lid.^{[6][7][14][2]}
2. To cover with water; to inundate: The river rose and submerged the lower fields.^{[6][7][14][2]}
3. To sink or go below the surface of water: The submarine submerged at dawn.^[14][7][2]
4. To hide from view; to obscure or suppress: Her own views were submerged in a mass of quotation.^{[6][7][14][2]}
5. To overwhelm, as with work or problems; to absorb completely.^[14][8][2]

Word family

• submergence
• submergible
• resubmerge

Related words

• merge
• submerse
• submersion
• immerse
• emerge

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 p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins