Definition

Adjective: 1. Excessively or intensely desirous; consuming with eagerness or passion: Describes a feeling or desire that is so strong it seems to consume a person. 2. Destructive; consuming or destroying completely: Describes something that consumes or destroys voraciously.

Usage

The adjective "devouring" is used to describe a powerful, often overwhelming, force, emotion, or action. It can be applied literally to something that physically consumes, or figuratively to intense emotions or desires.

Examples

• Adjective:
  • She looked at the ancient manuscript with devouring curiosity. (Her curiosity was intense and consuming.)
  • The devouring flames quickly engulfed the old barn. (The flames consumed the barn destructively.)
  • He has a devouring ambition to reach the top of his profession. (His ambition is all-consuming.)

Advanced Usage

• Figurative Use for Emotions: Commonly used to personify abstract feelings like grief, passion, or jealousy as if they were creatures that could eat away at a person.
  • A devouring sense of guilt kept him awake at night.
• Literary/Descriptive Use: Often found in literary or vivid descriptive writing to emphasize extreme intensity or destruction.

Variants and Related Words

• Devour (verb): To eat something hungrily or quickly; to consume destructively; to read or watch something eagerly and completely.
  • The lion devoured its prey. She devoured the entire book in one sitting.
• Devouringly (adverb): In a devouring manner. (This form is rare but possible in literary contexts).

Synonyms

• Consuming: (e.g., a consuming interest)
• Voracious: (e.g., a voracious reader)
• Ravenous: (e.g., ravenous hunger)
• Insatiable: (e.g., insatiable desire)
• Avid: (e.g., an avid collector)

Related Phrases and Idioms

• "Eat someone alive" (idiom): While not using "devouring," this idiom conveys a similar figurative sense of being consumed by criticism, anxiety, or a competitive situation.
  • The stress of the job was eating him alive.

Adjective

1. (often followed by `for') ardently or excessively desirous
   • avid for adventure
   • an avid ambition to succeed
   • fierce devouring affection
   • the esurient eyes of an avid curiosity
   • greedy for fame