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Swamp   /swɑmp/  /swɔmp/   Listen
noun
Swamp  n.  Wet, spongy land; soft, low ground saturated with water, but not usually covered with it; marshy ground away from the seashore. "Gray swamps and pools, waste places of the hern." "A swamp differs from a bog and a marsh in producing trees and shrubs, while the latter produce only herbage, plants, and mosses."
Swamp blackbird. (Zool.) See Redwing (b).
Swamp cabbage (Bot.), skunk cabbage.
Swamp deer (Zool.), an Asiatic deer (Rucervus Duvaucelli) of India.
Swamp hen. (Zool.)
(a)
An Australian azure-breasted bird (Porphyrio bellus); called also goollema.
(b)
An Australian water crake, or rail (Porzana Tabuensis); called also little swamp hen.
(c)
The European purple gallinule.
Swamp honeysuckle (Bot.), an American shrub (Azalea viscosa syn. Rhododendron viscosa or Rhododendron viscosum) growing in swampy places, with fragrant flowers of a white color, or white tinged with rose; called also swamp pink and white swamp honeysuckle.
Swamp hook, a hook and chain used by lumbermen in handling logs. Cf. Cant hook.
Swamp itch. (Med.) See Prairie itch, under Prairie.
Swamp laurel (Bot.), a shrub (Kalmia glauca) having small leaves with the lower surface glaucous.
Swamp maple (Bot.), red maple. See Maple.
Swamp oak (Bot.), a name given to several kinds of oak which grow in swampy places, as swamp Spanish oak (Quercus palustris), swamp white oak (Quercus bicolor), swamp post oak (Quercus lyrata).
Swamp ore (Min.), bog ore; limonite.
Swamp partridge (Zool.), any one of several Australian game birds of the genera Synoicus and Excalfatoria, allied to the European partridges.
Swamp robin (Zool.), the chewink.
Swamp sassafras (Bot.), a small North American tree of the genus Magnolia (Magnolia glauca) with aromatic leaves and fragrant creamy-white blossoms; called also sweet bay.
Swamp sparrow (Zool.), a common North American sparrow (Melospiza Georgiana, or Melospiza palustris), closely resembling the song sparrow. It lives in low, swampy places.
Swamp willow. (Bot.) See Pussy willow, under Pussy.


verb
Swamp  v. t.  (past & past part. swamped; pres. part. swamping)  
1.
To plunge or sink into a swamp.
2.
(Naut.) To cause (a boat) to become filled with water; to capsize or sink by whelming with water.
3.
Fig.: To plunge into difficulties and perils; to overwhelm; to ruin; to wreck. "The Whig majority of the house of Lords was swamped by the creation of twelve Tory peers." "Having swamped himself in following the ignis fatuus of a theory."


Swamp  v. i.  
1.
To sink or stick in a swamp; figuratively, to become involved in insuperable difficulties.
2.
To become filled with water, as a boat; to founder; to capsize or sink; figuratively, to be ruined; to be wrecked.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Swamp" Quotes from Famous Books



... tall Arkansan, with high-combed hair, self-conscious gloves, and very broad, clean-shaven lower jaw, how the peculiar formation of delta lands, by which they drain away from the larger watercourses, instead of into them, had made the swamp there in the rear of the town, for more than a century, "the common dumping-ground and cesspool ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... time before sunset we came to a part of the jungle that opened on to a large swamp, with long rank grass about six feet high, across which was a sort of Dyak bridge. The guide having made signs for me to advance, I cautiously crept to the edge of the jungle; and after some little trouble, and watching the ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... hundred-weight, pork a dollar a pound, beans fifty cents a pound, and other things in proportion. Every party that starts from the Sound should have their own supplies to last them three or four months, and they should bring the largest size chinook canoes, as small ones are very liable to swamp in the rapids. Each canoe should be provided with thirty fathoms of strong line for towing over swift water, and every man well armed. The Indians here can beat anything alive stealing. They will soon be able to steal a man's food after he has ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... anthropophagous habits laid them open to a certain amount of criticism. Not many years ago Mr. Bamberger, the famous violinist, in the course of a triumphal tour in the Southern Pacific, was captured by the inhabitants of Kulambranga, detained for several weeks in captivity in a mangrove swamp, where he suffered great inconvenience from the gigantic frogs (Rana Guppyi) which infest this region, and was only rescued with great difficulty by a punitive expedition—conducted by Sir Pompey Boldero—when on the eve of being sacrificed to the gastronomic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... swung and sank away backward, groves of orange and magnolia grew plainer to the eye than suburban streets, and the course changed again, from west to north. Soon on the right, behind a high levee and backed by a sombre swamp forest, appeared the live-oaks and gardens of Carrollton, and presently on the left came Nine-mile Point and another bend of the river westward. As the boat's prow turned, the waters, from shore to shore, reflected the low sun so dazzlingly that nearly all the passengers ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable


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