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 company said the design consumes approximately 30 percent less fuel than comparable conventional aircraft.
    — Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 22 Oct. 2026
  • Not every abnormal reading is an emergency, yet every alert consumes clinical attention.
    — Ayush Jain, Forbes.com, 20 Oct. 2026
Definition of consumes
Verb
  • Country music star Randy Houser spends a lot of his life on the road, but when the shows are over and the tour bus stops rolling, there's usually one thing on his mind.
    — Amber Harding OutKick, FOXNews.com, 21 Oct. 2026
  • Every year, Santos spends months back home in the Yukon as the official sign painter of Dawson City, preserving its history on behalf of the Canadian government.
    — Nina Corcoran, Pitchfork, 21 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
  • That pretty much exhausts the points of agreement between the pro- and anti-Proposition 40 camps.
    — Business Columnist, Los Angeles Times, 16 Oct. 2026
  • Instead of occupying both sides with large cooling vents, air enters toward the front of the station and exhausts through the rear.
    — Michael Lydick, PC Magazine, 9 Oct. 2026
Definition of exhausts
Verb
  • Sang-woo, who’d previously refused to drink soju with Ho-seok and Mi-ok, gulps down a fifteen-hundred-dollar bottle of Gaja Chardonnay.
    — E. Tammy Kim, New Yorker, 12 Oct. 2026
  • 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
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
  • Photoluminescence occurs when a material absorbs energy and subsequently emits light.
    — Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 13 Oct. 2026
  • Plus the formula features a milky serum-like texture that feels featherlight and absorbs fast.
    — Conçetta Ciarlo, Vogue, 13 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 27 Oct. 2026.

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