Other forms: erupted, erupts, erupting
To erupt is to burst out violently, as volcanoes and tempers do. The volcano erupted, erupted in laughter, violence erupted.
The suddenness after quiet is what the word carries — nothing erupts gradually. Volcanoes are called dormant rather than extinct because the record shows how long they can wait. Figuratively a crowd, a row or a rash erupts. Note that the Latin means to break out, from rumpere, the same root as rupture.
1verberuptTo burst out violently.
“When the volcano erupted, ash fell on villages many miles away.”
erupt is a bursting out.
Also accepted in games: explode
Latin erumpere is ex plus rumpere, to break. Rupture, interrupt and bankrupt come from the same breaking.
Proto-Indo-European
*Hrewp-
Latin
eruptus
English, today
erupt
Built from
From Latin eruptus, past participle of ērumpō (“to break out (of), to burst out (from)”), from e (“out”) + rumpō (“to break”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA