Flood

Flood

A flood is an overflow of water that submerges land. The European Union (EU) Floods Directive defines a flood as a covering by water of land not normally covered by water. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Flooding may result from the volume of water within a body of water, such as a river or lake, which overflows or breaks levees, with the result that some of the water escapes its usual boundaries, or may be due to accumulation of rainwater on saturated ground in an areal flood.

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Famous quotes containing the word flood:

    Twilight and evening bell.
    And after that the dark!
    And may there be no sadness of farewell,
    When I embark;

    For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
    The flood may bear me far,
    I hope to see my Pilot face to face
    When I have crossed the bar.
    Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)

    Hearing the low sound
    of a cloud scattering rain
    at midnight
    and thinking for an eternity
    on his absent young wife,
    a traveller heaved a sigh
    and with a flood of tears
    howled the whole night long.
    Now, villagers won’t let him stay
    in their place anymore.
    Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.)

    Men hold themselves cheap and vile; and yet a man is a fagot of thunderbolts. All the elements pour through his system: he is the flood of the flood, and fire of the fire; he feels the antipodes and the pole, as drops of his blood: they are the extension of his personality.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)