[f. SWAMP sb.]
1. pass. To be entangled or lost in a swamp. N. Amer. ? Obs.
1688. Clayton, Virginia, in Phil. Trans., XVII. 986. So that she might turn thereon her weak Cattle, and such as should at any time be swamp’d.
1814. Brackenridge, Jrnl., in Views Louisiana, 210. In spending an hour to relieve a poor ox, which was swamped near the bank.
2. orig. pass. To be submerged or inundated with water (or other liquid), as a boat, a piece of ground; hence actively, to submerge, inundate or soak with water, etc.
1772–84. Cook’s Voy. (1790), IV. 1381. In the morning, the long-boat was found swamped.
1835. Lytton, Rienzi, V. iii. The ground was swamped with blood.
1835. Marryat, Jacob Faithful, xxxvii. The wherry … pitched so heavily, that we were afraid of being swamped.
1865. Kingsley, Herew., vi. At night a sea broke over them, and would have swamped the Otter, had she not been the best of sea-boats.
1879. Atcherley, Trip Boërland, 172. The claims were continually being swamped out by the river.
1881. F. Witti, Diary, 10 June, in J. Hatton, New Ceylon, vi. (1881), 166. Towards midnight we awoke in our leaf hut—swamped.
transf. 1858. B. Taylor, North. Trav., xvii. 174. Meat … is rarely properly cooked, and game … is injured by being swamped in sauces.
1883. Century Mag., Sept., 643. Sand has beaten in and swamped the vegetation.
1888. Portfolio, April, 68 (Cent. Dict.). Swamped with full washes and blots of colour or strong strokes with the red pen.
3. intr. a. in passive sense: To be swamped or submerged; to fill with water and sink, as a boat. Also fig.
1795. in Nicolas, Disp. Nelson (1845), VII. p. xxvii. At 11 the yawl astern swamped and was lost with all her furniture.
1821. Scott, Pirate, viii. The boats swamped in the current—all were lost.
1858. Sears, Athan., iv. 40. A higher step that would have cleared him at once of materialism, and not suffered him to sink back and swamp in it again.
1873. Forest & Stream, 18 Dec., 290/3. I found him sitting on a log, wet, dirty, and swamping up to his waist.
b. To overflow, cause inundation. rare.
1905. Contemp. Rev., July, 95. Sand, mud, grass and thrift being mingled together, which a spring-tide … was silently swamping over.
4. fig. (trans.) To plunge or sink as if in a swamp or in water; to overwhelm with difficulties, or esp. by superior numbers, so as to render inefficient.
1818. Todd, To Swamp, to whelm or sink as in a swamp. A modern word.
1833. Greville, Mem. (1874), II. 380. He said the Tories were indignant at the idea of being compelled to keep quiet, and that if they were to be swamped the sooner it was done the better.
1836. Disraeli, Lett. Runnymede, 171. The Whigs in 1718 sought to govern the country by ‘swamping’ the House of Commons; in 1836 it is the House of Lords that is to be ‘swamped.’
1846. Wellington, in Croker Papers (1884), 31 Oct. He … endeavoured to swamp [the erection of] the statue in Parliament.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxf., i. (1889), 2. The fast set … swamped, and gave the tone to, the college.
1893. Selous, Trav. S. E. Africa, 9. I feel convinced that in South Africa the Dutch element will never become swamped as it has been in America.
b. To ruin financially.
1864. Mrs. J. H. Riddell, Geo. Geith, I. xv. 281. Mortgages enough to have swamped any man.
1879. Tourgee, Fool’s Err., xviii. 91. If I gave in to them, I … would be swamped by my fertilizer account in the fall.
5. U.S. To make (a logging-road) in a forest or ‘swamp’ by felling trees, clearing away undergrowth, etc. Also, to haul (logs) to the skidways.
1857. Thoreau, Maine W., Allegash & E. Branch (1912), 289. Making a logging-road in the Maine woods is called ‘swamping it.’… This was the most perfectly swamped of all the roads I ever saw.
1908. H. Day, King Spruce, xi. 129. The boys who were swampin’ the twitch-roads.
Hence Swamped ppl. a., Swamping vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1802. Scott, Lett., in Lockhart (1837), I. xi. 357. Besides the risks of swamping and breaking our necks.
1828–43. Tytler, Hist. Scot. (1864), I. 130. Many … were drowned by the swamping of one of the vessels.
1871. Whittier, Sisters, xiii. In peril from swamping sea Or lee shore rocks.
1891. Law Times, XCII. 74/2. The swamping of the ecclesiastical element in the House of Lords.
1899. Edin. Rev., Oct., 302. The swamped area and the rotting vegetation are sufficient cause for the unhealthiness of the tract.
1902. S. E. White, Blazed Trail, vi. 45. Old man Heath was a veteran woodsman who had come to swamping in his old age.
