Meaning & use
flood out
Last updated
Meanings
verbtransitive or intransitive
To force people to leave their homes because of flooding.
Grammar: Often used in the passive: 'be flooded out'. The object (people) comes before 'out'.
Patterns
- flood someone out
- be flooded out of something
- flood out of something
Heavy rain flooded out hundreds of families in the valley.
The village was flooded out twice last winter.
Residents were flooded out of their homes after the river burst its banks.
verbtransitive
To make a place unusable by filling it with water.
Grammar: Can be used literally or in the passive.
Patterns
- flood out a building
- be flooded out
The storm flooded out the school, so classes were canceled.
The basement was flooded out and had to be pumped dry.
Word forms
| third person singular | floods out |
|---|---|
| past tense | flooded out |
| past participle | flooded out |
| -ing form | flooding out |
Common combinations
- be flooded out
- Many families were flooded out of their homes.
- flood out of
- They were flooded out of the apartment by a broken pipe.
- flooded out twice
- The shop was flooded out twice this year.
- flood someone out
- The dam burst and flooded the farmers out.
Synonyms and how they differ
Word family
- flood noun
- A large amount of water covering dry land.
- flooding noun
- The situation when an area is covered with water.
Commonly confused: flood out or flood in?
flood out vs flood in
'Flood in' means to arrive in large numbers (e.g., 'Fans flooded in'), while 'flood out' means to force people out by flooding.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'flood out' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Flood out' means to force people from a place by flooding, as in option A. Option B misuses 'flooded' as an emotion; option C confuses it with 'went out'; option D confuses it with 'filled out'.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “flood out”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.