devours

verb

present tense third-person singular of devour
1
as in consumes
to destroy all trace of a series of devastating storms devoured the beach on the south side of the island

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in spends
to make complete use of a catastrophic medical event that devoured their savings

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms
3
as in inhales
to swallow or eat greedily the starving villagers simply devoured the relief food

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of devours Usually, either a star and its companion mind their own business or the star completely and rapidly devours its neighbor. — Mary Randolph, Scientific American, 5 Oct. 2026 The larvae come from the Cochliomyia hominivorax fly, which invades open wounds or the mucous membranes of body openings in any warm-blooded animal, including humans, and devours tissue, causing the wounds to become increasingly deep and painful. — Abraham Tellez, Los Angeles Times, 25 Aug. 2026 The fungus then slowly devours the ant, sprouting through its head in one final indignity. — Jennifer Ouellette, ArsTechnica, 6 Aug. 2026 Regardless, there’s a clear symbolism to Clark empathizing and embracing a bloated externalization of his own inchoate fury until someone with an outside perspective disturbs his peace, and that fury breaks loose and devours him. — Tasha Robinson, Vulture, 29 May 2026 In my experience, urgency devours strategy for breakfast, lunch and dinner. — Allison Mais, Forbes.com, 26 May 2026 There are Americans—and Britons and Canadians and Australians and Europeans, too—who remember that a society that turns on its Jewish minority eventually devours itself. — David Frum, The Atlantic, 21 May 2026 Today, the city devours tens of millions every year. — Susan Spencer, CBS News, 17 May 2026 His popularity’s decline was shaped partly by race, partly by our deep but uneven revulsion toward scandal involving children, and partly by a media ecosystem that devours spectacle. — Steven Gray, Time, 29 Apr. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for devours
  1. consumes
  2. spends
  3. inhales
  4. exhausts
  5. gulps
  6. drains
  7. crams
  8. absorbs
Verb
  • The chips are power-hungry (a ChatGPT AI query consumes about ten times as much energy as a normal Google search) and also generate a lot of heat, which requires cooling systems.
    — The Week UK, TheWeek, 27 Sep. 2026
  • Maneuvering consumes energy, and atmospheric flight produces substantial heating and drag.
    — Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 27 Sep. 2026
Definition of consumes
Verb
  • The privacy extends to the luxury categories where Gen Z spends most heavily.
    — Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, 8 Oct. 2026
  • The ‘closer’ Today, as a first-year resident in Boston, Carleton spends most of his time treating patients.
    — Allessandra DiCorato, STAT, 8 Oct. 2026
Definition of spends
Verb
  • The child inhales for four counts, holds for four counts, exhales for four counts and holds again for four counts.
    — Samantha Agate, Sacbee.com, 10 Aug. 2026
  • The chemical is particularly tough on the human respiratory system and, depending on how much a person inhales, MMA can cause everything from sore throats and cough to dizziness, nausea and, at the highest levels, damage to the nervous system, Kleinman said.
    — Sierra van der Brug, Oc Register, 23 May 2026
Definition of inhales
Verb
  • If a bureaucratic process exhausts whatever time a citizen has available, then benefits are lost or rights are denied.
    — Joshua Rothman, New Yorker, 14 Aug. 2026
  • That’s because even ordinary winds – and far worse, storms and earthquakes – cause tall buildings to sway, which ruins people’s concentration, wrecks their mood, and even exhausts them.
    — New Atlas, New Atlas, 24 July 2026
Definition of exhausts
Verb
  • The customer gulps it down in a single stretch and drops it into a bin – visible proof of his relief, at least for this moment, from the sweltering heat.
    — Light Oriye Tamunotonye, Christian Science Monitor, 3 Sep. 2026
  • What's more, while virtually all VTOLs being developed these days are electric, the Janus-1 is powered by a turboshaft engine that gulps n' burns diesel, kerosene or Jet A fuel.
    — Ben Coxworth October 21, New Atlas, 21 Oct. 2025
Definition of gulps
Verb
  • Until, suddenly, the life drains from his eyes, sometimes for barely a second, and returning before anyone else in the scene notices.
    — Clayton Davis, Variety, 6 Oct. 2026
  • The all-in-one dock cleans the spinning dual mops with hot water, dries them with warm air to prevent musty smells, and automatically drains and refills the water tank.
    — Juhi Wadia, PC Magazine, 29 Sep. 2026
Definition of drains
Verb
  • Then there’s the Tesseract, which takes the scooter formula and crams it with an almost unreasonable amount of technology.
    — New Atlas, New Atlas, 3 Oct. 2026
  • Neutron stars are considered so extreme because the process that creates them crams between one and two times the mass of the sun down into a sphere with a width of around 12 miles (20 kilometers).
    — Robert Lea, Space.com, 24 Sep. 2026
Definition of crams
Verb
  • Instead of entering the bloodstream through a shot, the peptide absorbs across the tissue lining the mouth.
    — Samantha Agate, Sacbee.com, 7 Oct. 2026
  • The work focuses on a loss mechanism known as Boltzmann loss, which occurs because a material that absorbs light can also emit it.
    — Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 7 Oct. 2026
Definition of absorbs

Browse Nearby Words

devouring
devours
devout
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Cite this Entry

“Devours.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/devours. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026.

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