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YOUR VOCABULARY, ONE WORD AT A TIME

inundate

Verb

IPA /ˈɪnʌndeɪt/

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Meaning in plain English

To send or give someone so many requests, messages or tasks that they struggle to deal with them all.

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Pronunciation

inundate/ˈɪnʌndeɪt/

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  1. A support team can handle a few questions

  2. Hundreds of messages arrive at once

  3. The team cannot deal with them all

Customers can inundate a team with more messages than it can manage.

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Examples in context

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  1. Relatives inundated us with messages when the baby arrived.
  2. Customers inundated the support team with questions after the website changed.

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To send or give someone so many requests, messages or tasks that they struggle to deal with them all.
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inundate — To send or give someone so many requests, messages or tasks that they struggle to deal with them all.

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To send or give someone so many requests, messages or tasks that they struggle to deal with them all.

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Word origin

From Latin inundare, meaning flood, related to unda, meaning wave.

Did you know?

Inundate also literally means flood an area with water; the overload meaning is figurative.

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inundate

/ˈɪnʌndeɪt/ (Verb)

“Use inundate someone with something or be inundated with requests. The word is formal.”

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