Plural of flood; large amounts of water overflowing onto normally dry land, or overwhelmingly large quantities of something.
From Old English 'flod,' related to German 'Flut' and Gothic 'flodus,' ultimately from Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'to flow.' The word has referred to water overflow since Old English times, with the metaphorical meaning developing later.
The word 'flood' originally just meant any flowing water (like a river), and only gradually specialized to mean water that overflows its banks—but you can still see the broader meaning in phrases like 'floods of tears' or 'flooded with emails,' which use the same image of something overflowing its normal boundaries.
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