swamped

American

[swompt] / swɒmpt /

adjective

filled or covered with water; flooded; inundated.

The most important thing we learned is how to paddle a swamped canoe back in to shore.
He saw lines of people walking along the swamped road, completely drenched.
overwhelmed, especially with an excess of something.

The website outage was most likely caused by swamped servers.
Whether it's helping a swamped colleague with a project or buying a stranger a cup of coffee, any small act of kindness can boost happiness.

verb

the simple past tense and past participle of swamp.

Etymology

Origin of swamped

swamp ( def. ) + -ed ² ( def. )

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

"But that could be swamped by events in the Middle East raising UK inflation and weakening UK GDP growth."

From BBC • Mar. 3, 2026

Purists would celebrate those productivity gains, but their economic benefit would be quickly swamped by the negative implications of having entire companies go out of business in droves and surging unemployment.

From Barron's • Feb. 25, 2026

"You know they come in waves and you think you're doing alright and then you're hit by another one and you're swamped," she said.

From BBC • Feb. 22, 2026

Another obvious problem is that employees are swamped with far too many unproductive, virtual meetings.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 16, 2025

That year the small group of town children were swamped temporarily by a collection of elderly pupils shipped in from Old Sarum because somebody had set fire to the school there.

From "Go Set a Watchman: A Novel" by Harper Lee

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023