swamp

Pluralswamps

Formsswamps, swamping, swamped

1. 1
   wetlandnouncountable

   An area of soft, water-saturated land, often wooded, that is generally a rich habitat for certain plants and animals but poorly suited to many kinds of farming; a type of wetland.

   Cypress trees rose from the black water of the swamp, draped in moss.

   Early settlers drained many of the region's swamps to make room for farms.

   Similarmarsh, bog, wetland, morass, mire

   Note

   The word's first records are North American: John Smith's account of Virginia in 1624 already finds "small Marshes and Swamps" there, though the word was probably in local use in Britain earlier, and its origin is uncertain. Among the wetland words, beside marsh, bog and fen, swamp is the one that often has trees.

2. 2
   overloadverbfigurativelytransitive

   To overwhelm someone or something, as by making them too busy or by overrunning their capacity.

   After the ad aired, viewers swamped the station's phone lines.

   A sudden rush of patients can swamp a small emergency room.

   Similaroverwhelm, flood, inundate, deluge, overload

   Note

   Two patterns carry it. In the passive with with, it means too busy to cope: swamped with paperwork, swamped with calls from upset parents. In active use about contests it means beaten by sheer weight, as when Hillary Rodham Clinton swamped an antiwar challenger for renomination to the Senate, or Spurs swamped Arsenal after the break.

3. 3
   fill with waterverbtransitive

   To drench something or fill it with water, as when waves pour into a boat.

   Waves broke over the bow and swamped the dinghy before they could bail.

   Storms like this regularly swamp the low-lying streets near the harbor.

   Similarflood, inundate, drench

4. 4
   government corruptionnounUS

   The corruption, cronyism, inefficiency, and entrenched interests alleged to pervade the US federal government, especially in Washington, DC.

   Outsider candidates in both parties campaign against the swamp, promising to clean up Washington.

   Critics complained that the new appointees were creatures of the very swamp they had vowed to drain.

   Similarestablishment

   Note

   American politics uses it almost always with the: candidates promise to drain the swamp, and their supporters complain of the swamp winning. It is a charge rather than a description, used by those attacking Washington insiders, so neutral writing usually reports it as someone else's word instead of using it in its own voice.

5. 5
   messy situationnounfigurativelycountable

   A foul place or situation, or one in which progress is difficult.

   The negotiations sank into a swamp of procedural objections and petty disputes.

   The back streets near the docks were a swamp of crime and squalor.

   Similarmorass, quagmire, mire, cesspool

6. 6
   verbfigurativelytransitive

   To plunge someone or something into difficulties and danger, or to overwhelm and ruin them.

   A wave of unpaid loans threatened to swamp the small bank entirely.

   He swamped himself in lawsuits he could never hope to win.

   Similaroverwhelm, sink, engulf

   Note

   Ruin is the point here, not mere busyness. John Richard Green's A Short History of the English People (1874) describes the Whig majority in the House of Lords as swamped by the creation of twelve Tory peers, sunk by sheer numbers. Used reflexively, as in swamped himself, it means ruining oneself through one's own folly.

7. 7
   clear bushesverbdialectalAppalachiatransitive

   To clear a road or area of brush, especially to open a path that lets loggers reach the trees.

   Before the teams could haul a single log, the crew had to swamp a road through the laurel thickets.

   He swamped skid roads for a lumber outfit in West Virginia the summer he turned sixteen.

   Similarclear

   Note

   Appalachian loggers used it for the work of opening a trail: clearing underbrush, limbs and fallen trees so that teams of horses or oxen could reach the logs and snake them out. It takes the road as its object (you swamp a road) or stands alone, and like the teams themselves it became outmoded as the work changed.

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