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Ebb vs Devour - What's the difference?

ebb | devour |

As verbs the difference between ebb and devour

is that ebb is to flow back or recede while devour is to eat quickly, greedily, hungrily, or ravenously.

As a noun ebb

is the receding movement of the tide.

As an adjective ebb

is low, shallow.

ebb

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • The receding movement of the tide.
    • The boats will go out on the ebb .
  • * (rfdate) Shelley
    • Thou shoreless flood which in thy ebb and flow / Claspest the limits of morality!
  • A gradual decline.
  • * (rfdate) Roscommon
    • Thus all the treasure of our flowing years, / Our ebb of life for ever takes away.
  • A low state; a state of depression.
  • * (rfdate) Dryden
    • Painting was then at its lowest ebb .
  • * 2002 , (Joyce Carol Oates), The New Yorker , 22 & 29 April
    • A "lowest ebb'" implies something singular and finite, but for many of us, born in the Depression and raised by parents distrustful of fortune, an "' ebb " might easily have lasted for years.
  • A European bunting, .

    • Derived terms

    * ebb and flow * ebb tide

    Antonyms

    * flood * flow

    Related terms

    * tide

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • to flow back or recede
    • The tides ebbed at noon .
  • to fall away or decline
    • The dying man's strength ebbed away .
  • to fish with stakes and nets that serve to prevent the fish from getting back into the sea with the ebb
  • To cause to flow back.
    • (Ford)

    Synonyms

    ebb away, ebb down, ebb off, ebb out, reflux, wane

    Adjective

    (er)
  • low, shallow
    • The water there is otherwise very low and ebb . (Holland)
    ----

    devour

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To eat quickly, greedily, hungrily, or ravenously.
  • To rapidly destroy, engulf, or lay waste.
  • :
  • *Bible, (w) i. 20
    • If ye refuseye shall be devoured with the sword.
  • *{{quote-book, year=2006, author=(w)
    • , chapter=1, title= Internal Combustion , passage=Blast after blast, fiery outbreak after fiery outbreak, like a flaming barrage from within,
  • To take in avidly with the intellect.
  • :
  • *
  • *:Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to "Chat of the Social World," gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl's intelligence. She devoured with more avidity than she had her food those pretentiously phrased chronicles of the snobocracy […] distilling therefrom an acid envy that robbed her napoleon of all its savour.
  • To absorb or engross the mind fully, especially in a destructive manner.
  • :

    • Synonyms

    * gobble, gorge, consume, devastate, overwhelm, wolf