What does devoured mean?
'Devoured' is the past tense and past participle of the verb 'devour', meaning to eat something quickly, eagerly, and often greedily. Beyond the dinner table, it extends powerfully into figurative territory: fire devours buildings, disease devours the body, and readers devoured books — meaning they consumed them with ravenous enthusiasm rather than literally chewing them. The word can also describe emotional states: someone may be devoured by jealousy, guilt, or ambition, as though consumed from within. Its connotations are vivid and dramatic, evoking hunger, urgency, and sometimes destruction, which makes it a favorite in both journalism and literature where plain verbs like 'ate' or 'read' would feel flat. Rooted in Latin 'vorare', meaning 'to swallow', it shares ancestry with 'voracious' and 'carnivore'. Whether describing a hungry teenager demolishing pizza or a wildfire consuming a forest, 'devoured' communicates intensity and totality in a single word.
verb (past tense and past participle of devour)Past tense of devour: to eat food quickly and greedily, or to consume or destroy something completely. Figuratively, to be devoured is to be overwhelmed or intensely absorbed by an emotion, interest, or activity.
- (of food) eaten quickly and eagerly
- (of fire, disease, time, etc.) consumed or destroyed completely
- (of a person) overwhelmed or preoccupied by an emotion or interest; intensely absorbed
"She devoured the novel in a single sitting, unable to put it down."
"The children devoured their pancakes before anyone else had picked up a fork."
"Flames devoured the old barn within minutes."
From Latin vorare, 'to swallow' — the same root that gives us 'voracious' and even 'carnivore'. When you're devoured by curiosity, you're literally being swallowed whole by it.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of devoured
'Devoured' derives from the verb 'devour', which entered Middle English from Old French 'devorer', itself from Latin 'devorare' — combining 'de-' (indicating completeness) with 'vorare', 'to swallow or devour'. The same Latin root gives us English words like 'voracious', 'carnivore', and 'herbivore'. The figurative sense of consuming something mentally or emotionally developed alongside the literal sense and has been established in English for centuries.
How devoured is actually used
'Devoured' carries a connotation of intensity — whether literal appetite or figurative absorption. In informal British English, 'scoffed' or 'demolished' can serve as playful substitutes for eating something quickly. The figurative use ('devoured by guilt', 'devoured the biography') is common in literary register.
Easily confused with devoured
No standard word is commonly confused with 'devoured'; its base form 'devour' differs only in tense.