Other forms: devoured, devouring, devours
To devour is to eat hungrily, or to consume something completely. Devour a meal, devour a book, fire devoured the roof.
The eating sense implies speed and appetite rather than manners. The figurative senses are stronger: devouring a book means reading it fast and completely, and fire devours a building. To be devoured by jealousy is to be consumed from inside. Note devourer; and that the word comes from the Latin for swallowing, the same root as voracious and carnivore.
1verbdevourTo eat hungrily.
“The hungry boys devoured the pizza in minutes.”
2verbconsumeTo consume something completely.
“Within hours, the forest fire had devoured dozens of homes.”
devour is a consuming.
Latin devorare is de- plus vorare, to swallow. Voracious, carnivore and herbivore come from the same swallowing.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʷerh₃-
Latin
dēvorō
Old French
devorer
Middle English
devouren
English, today
devour
Middle English devouren, from Old French devorer (Modern French dévorer), from Latin dēvorō, from vorō.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire