'Deluge' is Latin for 'wash away' — from 'luere' (to wash). A catastrophic flood in one word.
A severe flood; a great quantity of water covering an area. An overwhelming quantity of things arriving at the same time; an inundation.
From Old French deluge, from Latin dīluvium (a flood, an inundation, a washing away), from the verb dīluere (to wash away, to dilute), composed of dī- (apart, away, thoroughly) + luere (to wash, to atone), from PIE *lewh₃- (to wash, to purify). The PIE root *lewh₃- also underlies Latin lustrare (to purify by sacrifice) and English lave and lavatory. The word carried overwhelming theological weight from its earliest English appearances: the Deluge (capitalised) was the Biblical flood of Genesis
The word 'antediluvian' — meaning extremely old-fashioned or outdated — literally means 'before the deluge,' referring to the time before Noah's Flood. To call something antediluvian is to say it belongs to the world that was washed away. The word carries an implicit theology: there was a world before the Flood, and it was so corrupt that God
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