[f. prec. sb. Cf. earlier FLEDE.]
1. trans. To cover with a flood; to inundate.
1663. Wood, Life (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), I. 479. The streets in Oxon were all [fl]ouded with water, noe man durst to goe forth of his lodging.
1748. Relat. Earthq. Lima, 2. It sometimes exceed to such a Degree, that it floods the Out-Skirts of the Town.
1841. M. Elphinstone, The History of India, II. 451. The rainy season set in; the whole plain was flooded.
transf. and fig. 1841. L. Hunt, Seer (1864), 1. As the sunshine floods the sky and ocean, and yet nurses the baby buds of the roses on the wall, so we would fain open the largest and the very least sources of pleasure, the noblest that expands above us into the heavens, and the most familiar that catches our glance in the homestead.
1855. Stanley, Mem. Canterb., iii. (1857), 120. All along the road, and flooding the hedgeless plains, which bordered the road, the army, swelled by the surrounding peasantry, rolled along, crying ‘Kill! kill!’ drawing their swords, and thinking that they were sure of their prey.
1882. J. H. Blunt, Ref. Ch. Eng., II. 484. The bookstalls were flooded with Puritan pamphlets which had received the imprimatur of the Archbishop, and a popular literature was thus brought into wide and free circulation, the most conspicuous characteristic of which was that of a most bitter hostility to the doctrines, institutions, and customs of the Church.
1894. Gibbs, Colloq. Currency, 72. We shall be flooded with silver and all gold will go out of circulation.
† b. To duck (a person) in the river, rare.
14[?]. Symmie & His Bruther, xi., in Laing, E. P. P. (1822).
| Than sll þe laddes cryd wt a lairrum | |
| To flud him & to flyr him. |
2. To cover or fill with water; to irrigate (grass land); to deluge (a burning house, mine, etc.) with water. Also of rain, etc.: To fill (a river) to overflowing.
1831. Loudon, Encycl. Agric., § 2207. Flooding and warping are modes of irrigation, the former for manuring grass lands, and the latter for enriching the surface of arable lands; while both at the same time gradually raise up the surface of the soil.
1841. W. Spalding, Italy & It. Isl., I. 364. Naumachiæ, in which, on the arena of the circus or amphitheatre temporarily flooded, or in a permanent lake dug and fenced for the purpose, small galleys engaged in races or imitations of sea-fights.
1855. Bain, The Senses and the Intellect, III. iii. § 14. A violent storm has flooded the rivers, blown down trees and buildings, and inspired general terror.
1883. Manch. Exam., 24 Oct., 4/6. It was decided yesterday … to flood the … Colliery.
3. To pour (away, back, out) in a flood. In quots. fig. rare.
1829. A. Fonblanque, Eng. under 7 Administ. (1837), I. 232. Under the pretext of fishing, he daily goes to weep in the Virginia water,—a sheet, indeed, which it is known he has increased to its present handsome size by his pious tears; and where he floods away his sorrows in private, in a marquee, and with a Marchioness, without fear of being snubbed for his religious sensibility by the savage Prime Minister.
1862. Merivale, Rom. Emp. (1871), V. xl. 60. Nor was it [Rome] increased by the ever-accumulating wealth of all classes of society, like modern London, or by the constant tightening of the bands of centralization, by which the lifeblood of the provinces is flooded back upon Paris.
1888. Lighthall, Yng. Seigneur, 28. She [the merry girl] left me to flood out her spirits on a friend.
4. intr. a. Of rain: To fall in ‘torrents,’ rare. b. To come in ‘floods’ or great quantities; also with in. lit. and fig. c. Of a river: To overflow.
1755. L. Evans, Mid. Brit. Colonies, 30. If it floods early, it scarce retires within its Banks in a Month, or is fordable in a Month or two more.
1813. Byron, Giaour, xi.
| Though raves the gust, and floods the rain, | |
| No hand shall close its clasp again. |
1829. I. Taylor, Enthus., x. 268. Take up at hazard any dozen of the discourses, and reports, and tracts, that are yearly, and monthly, and weekly, flooding from the religious press.
a. 1861. Clough, Misc. Poems, Say not the Struggle, 9.
| For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, | |
| Seem here no painful inch to gain, | |
| Far back, through creeks and inlets making, | |
| Comes silent, flooding in, the main. |
1886. J. K. Jerome, Idle Thoughts, 18. Thoughts we cannot speak but only listen to flood in upon us, and, standing in the stillness under earth’s dark’ning dome, we feel that we are greater than our petty lives.
5. To suffer from uterine hæmorrhage.
1770. Hewson, in Phil. Trans., LX. 404, note. Besides giving stimulants and cordials to counteract the fainting, it is common practice in many parts of England, to give women, who are flooding, considerable quantities of port-wine, on a supposition that it will do them service by its astringency.
Hence Flooded, Flooding ppl. adjs. Also Flooder.
1627–61. Feltham, Resolves, I. liii. 95. They are free as the descending rain, and pour a plenty on the general world.… Surely, we nick-name this same floodding man, when we call him by the name of Brave.
1833. Mrs. Browning, Prometh. Bound, Poems (1850), I. 179.
| That son shall pluck the fruit | |
| From all that land wide-watered by the flow | |
| Of flooding Nile. |
1834. M. Scott, Cruise Midge (1859), 429. From the flooded floor the water was soaking through the seams, and drip, dripping on the dry ground below, like a shower-bath.
1854. J. S. C. Abbott, Napoleon (1855), II. iv. 76. ‘Pardon, Sire, pardon!’ she exclaimed, with suppliant hands and flooded eyes.
1871. Daily News, 30 June. They flooded the constituency with money … and the result was that the honourable flooder was sent to what is called another place.
1881. Mrs. C. Praed, Policy & P., I. 130. Maddox had upon one occasion saved Cathcart’s life in a flooded creek, and this circumstance was sufficent warrant for the strong, undemonstrative attachment that existed between two dissimilar natures.
1891. Galabin, Midwifery (ed. 2), 731. Certain women have a constitutional proclivity to flooding, not easily explained, and have been described as ‘flooders.’
