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Plunge   /pləndʒ/   Listen
noun
Plunge  n.  
1.
The act of thrusting into or submerging; a dive, leap, rush, or pitch into, or as into, water; as, to take the water with a plunge.
2.
Hence, a desperate hazard or act; a state of being submerged or overwhelmed with difficulties. (R.) "She was brought to that plunge, to conceal her husband's murder or accuse her son." "And with thou not reach out a friendly arm, To raise me from amidst this plunge of sorrows?"
3.
The act of pitching or throwing one's self headlong or violently forward, like an unruly horse.
4.
Heavy and reckless betting in horse racing; hazardous speculation. (Cant)
Plunge bath, an immersion by plunging; also, a large bath in which the bather can wholly immerse himself.
Plunge battery, or plunging battery (Elec.), a voltaic battery so arranged that the plates can be plunged into, or withdrawn from, the exciting liquid at pleasure.


verb
Plunge  v. t.  (past & past part. plunged; pres. part. plunging)  
1.
To thrust into water, or into any substance that is penetrable; to immerse; to cause to penetrate or enter quickly and forcibly; to thrust; as, to plunge the body into water; to plunge a dagger into the breast. Also used figuratively; as, to plunge a nation into war. "To plunge the boy in pleasing sleep." "Bound and plunged him into a cell." "We shall be plunged into perpetual errors."
2.
To baptize by immersion.
3.
To entangle; to embarrass; to overcome. (Obs.) "Plunged and graveled with three lines of Seneca."


Plunge  v. i.  
1.
To thrust or cast one's self into water or other fluid; to submerge one's self; to dive, or to rush in; as, he plunged into the river. Also used figuratively; as, to plunge into debt. "Forced to plunge naked in the raging sea." "To plunge into guilt of a murther."
2.
To pitch or throw one's self headlong or violently forward, as a horse does. "Some wild colt, which... flings and plunges."
3.
To bet heavily and with seeming recklessness on a race, or other contest; in an extended sense, to risk large sums in hazardous speculations. (Cant)
Plunging fire (Gun.), firing directed upon an enemy from an elevated position.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Plunge" Quotes from Famous Books



... her name to authorise the enquiry but she could not bear to send it: it would be bad enough that first meeting, without the feeling that he, too, had had time to recall all the past days. Better to go in upon him unprepared, and plunge into the subject. ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... week after the Miles incident, the "Advertiser" gave Harwood the shock of an unlooked-for plunge into ice-water by printing a sensational story under a double-column headline, reading, "The Boss in the Boordman Building." The Honorable Morton Bassett, so the article averred, no longer satisfied to rule his party amid the pastoral calm of Fraser County, had stolen into the capital and secretly ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... clear case of hate at first sight, for the mule began to plunge and squeal the instant it saw her. The woman hesitated not a minute, but lifting her big ham-like foot, she gave it one broadside kick that it must have mistaken for a thunderbolt, and in that low purr of hers, that might frighten a jungle tiger, ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... cabaret, Constance took a little tighter grip on herself and decided to take the plunge and see the affair out, although that sort of thing had very little ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... they are loose in the field, three or four in a group, under a tree, when it looks as if the slightest movement on their part must crush him; down to the side of the deep broad brook to swim sticks in it for boats, where a slip on the treacherous mud would plunge him in, and where the chance of rescue—everybody being half a mile away at work—would be absolutely nil. The cows come trampling through the yard; the bull bellows in the meadow; great, grunting sows, savage when they have ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies


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