What does ingurgitated mean?
Ingurgitated is the past tense and past participle of “ingurgitate,” a formal verb meaning to swallow, consume, or engulf with great appetite or enthusiasm. Its usual object is food, drink, or another material quantity, although figurative uses suggest an eager, indiscriminate absorption of ideas, stories, or experiences. The word has an unusually strong comic energy: someone who has ingurgitated a feast is not merely eating but doing so with remarkable enthusiasm. It can therefore be used seriously to emphasize voracity or figuratively to exaggerate eagerness. The form is uncommon in ordinary conversation, but it is effective in literary, humorous, or deliberately emphatic prose. Its Latin ancestry is equally vivid, since the original verb referred to swallowing something greedily down the throat.
verb (past tense and past participle)Ingurgitated means swallowed or engulfed greedily or eagerly. It is the past tense and past participle of the rare formal verb “ingurgitate.”
- Swallowed or engulfed greedily or eagerly, especially with food, liquid, or a large quantity.
"The hungry crowd ingurgitated the feast as soon as it was placed on the table."
"The hungry explorers ingurgitated every scrap of their provisions."
"She ingurgitated the novel with such enthusiasm that she finished it before midnight."
Ingurgitate comes from Latin for “to swallow greedily,” so the word vividly evokes food—or any substantial quantity—being gulped down with gusto.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of ingurgitated
The word derives from the Latin verb “ingurgitare,” meaning “to swallow greedily.” That verb combines the prefix “in-,” meaning “into,” with “gurges,” a Latin word for the throat or gurgling depth, thereby evoking the act of drawing something into the body. English adopted the word with its modern sense of consuming greedily or eagerly, while related forms such as “gurgle” preserve the same Latin root.
Related word forms
How ingurgitated is actually used
This is a rare, literary, and somewhat emphatic word. It is normally transitive and conveys greed, eagerness, or enthusiastic consumption, often with a humorous or exaggerated tone.