The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Flood \Flood\ (fl[u^]d), n. [OE. flod a flowing, stream, flood,
   AS. fl[=o]d; akin to D. vloed, OS. fl[=o]d, OHG. fluot, G.
   flut, Icel. fl[=o][eth], Sw. & Dan. flod, Goth. fl[=o]dus;
   from the root of E. flow. [root]80. See Flow, v. i.]
   1. A great flow of water; a body of moving water; the flowing
      stream, as of a river; especially, a body of water,
      rising, swelling, and overflowing land not usually thus
      covered; a deluge; a freshet; an inundation.
      [1913 Webster]

            A covenant never to destroy
            The earth again by flood.             --Milton.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. The flowing in of the tide; the semidiurnal swell or rise
      of water in the ocean; -- opposed to ebb; as, young
      flood; high flood.
      [1913 Webster]

            There is a tide in the affairs of men,
            Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.
                                                  --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. A great flow or stream of any fluid substance; as, a flood
      of light; a flood of lava; hence, a great quantity widely
      diffused; an overflowing; a superabundance; as, a flood of
      bank notes; a flood of paper currency.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. Menstrual disharge; menses. --Harvey.
      [1913 Webster]

   Flood anchor (Naut.), the anchor by which a ship is held
      while the tide is rising.

   Flood fence, a fence so secured that it will not be swept
      away by a flood.

   Flood gate, a gate for shutting out, admitting, or
      releasing, a body of water; a tide gate.

   Flood mark, the mark or line to which the tide, or a flood,
      rises; high-water mark.

   Flood tide, the rising tide; -- opposed to ebb tide.

   The Flood, the deluge in the days of Noah.
      [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Flood \Flood\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Flooded; p. pr. & vb. n.
   Flooding.]
   1. To overflow; to inundate; to deluge; as, the swollen river
      flooded the valley.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. To cause or permit to be inundated; to fill or cover with
      water or other fluid; as, to flood arable land for
      irrigation; to fill to excess or to its full capacity; as,
      to flood a country with a depreciated currency.
      [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

flood
    n 1: the rising of a body of water and its overflowing onto
         normally dry land; "plains fertilized by annual
         inundations" [syn: flood, inundation, deluge,
         alluvion]
    2: an overwhelming number or amount; "a flood of requests"; "a
       torrent of abuse" [syn: flood, inundation, deluge,
       torrent]
    3: light that is a source of artificial illumination having a
       broad beam; used in photography [syn: flood, floodlight,
       flood lamp, photoflood]
    4: a large flow [syn: flood, overflow, outpouring]
    5: the act of flooding; filling to overflowing [syn: flood,
       flowage]
    6: the occurrence of incoming water (between a low tide and the
       following high tide); "a tide in the affairs of men which,
       taken at the flood, leads on to fortune" -Shakespeare [syn:
       flood tide, flood, rising tide] [ant: ebbtide]
    v 1: fill quickly beyond capacity; as with a liquid; "the
         basement was inundated after the storm"; "The images
         flooded his mind" [syn: deluge, flood, inundate,
         swamp]
    2: cover with liquid, usually water; "The swollen river flooded
       the village"; "The broken vein had flooded blood in her eyes"
    3: supply with an excess of; "flood the market with tennis
       shoes"; "Glut the country with cheap imports from the Orient"
       [syn: flood, oversupply, glut]
    4: become filled to overflowing; "Our basement flooded during
       the heavy rains"

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

352 Moby Thesaurus words for "flood":
   Niagara, abundance, access, accession, accretion, accrual,
   accruement, accumulation, acres, addition, advance, affluence,
   aggrandizement, alluvion, alluvium, ample sufficiency, ampleness,
   amplification, amplitude, appreciation, arc, arc light, army,
   ascent, augmentation, avalanche, bags, ballooning, barrels,
   be prodigal with, bloating, bonanza, boom, boost, bountifulness,
   bountiousness, brash, broadening, buildup, bumper crop,
   burst of rain, bushel, cascade, cataclysm, cataract, choke,
   cloudburst, cluster, cohue, color filter, copiousness,
   countlessness, course, cover, crescendo, crowd, crush, current,
   debacle, deluge, development, dimmer, dip, direct tide, downfall,
   downflow, downpour, drencher, drift, drown, duck, dunk, ebb,
   ebb and flow, ebb tide, edema, elevation, embarras de richesses,
   engulf, engulfment, enlargement, enough, excess, expansion,
   extension, extravagance, extravagancy, exuberance, fertility, fill,
   float, floats, flock, flood the market, flood tide, flooding,
   floodlight, flow, flow back, flow in, flow on, flow out, flush,
   flux, flux and reflux, foison, footlights, foots, fresh, freshet,
   full measure, full tide, fullness, gain, galaxy, gelatin,
   generosity, generousness, glut, great abundance, great plenty,
   greatening, growth, gush, gushing rain, heap, heavy rain,
   high tide, high water, hike, horde, host, immerse, increase,
   increment, inflation, inundate, inundation, issue, jam, jump,
   klieg light, know no bounds, landslide, lavishness, leap, legion,
   liberality, liberalness, light plot, lights, limelight, load, lots,
   low tide, low water, lunar tide, luxuriance, luxuriate, make,
   marquee, mass, maximum, medium, mob, money to burn,
   more than enough, mountain, mounting, much, multiplication,
   multitude, myriad, myriads, neap, neap tide, nimiety, numerousness,
   ocean, oceans, opposite tide, opulence, opulency, outpouring,
   overabound, overabundance, overaccumulation, overbounteousness,
   overbrim, overcopiousness, overdose, overequip, overflow,
   overflowing, overfurnish, overgrow, overlavish, overlavishness,
   overluxuriance, overmeasure, overmuchness, overnumerousness,
   overplentifulness, overplenty, overpopulation, overprofusion,
   overprovender, overprovide, overprovision, overrun, overrunning,
   oversell, overspill, overspread, overstock, oversufficiency,
   oversupply, overswarm, overwhelm, panoply, peck, permeate, plash,
   plenitude, plenteousness, plentifulness, plenty, plethora, pour,
   pour on, pour out, pour over, press, prevalence, prodigality,
   productiveness, profuseness, profusion, proliferation, pullulate,
   quantities, quantity, rabble, rain, rainburst, rainspout,
   rainstorm, raise, redundancy, refluence, reflux, regurgitate,
   repleteness, repletion, rich harvest, rich vein, richness, riot,
   riotousness, rip, riptide, rise, river, rout, ruck, run, run over,
   run riot, rush, satiety, saturate, scads, scud, sea, set, shower,
   slop, slosh, sluice, snowballing, soaker, soaking rain, solar tide,
   spate, spill, spill out, spill over, spillage, spot, spotlight,
   spout, spread, spring tide, stream, submerge, submersion,
   substantiality, substantialness, superabound, superabundance,
   superfluity, superflux, surfeit, surge, surge back, surplus, swamp,
   swarm, sweep, swelling, teem, teemingness, thalassometer,
   the Deluge, the Flood, throng, tidal amplitude, tidal current,
   tidal current chart, tidal flow, tidal range, tidal wave, tide,
   tide chart, tide gate, tide gauge, tide race, tide rip, tidewater,
   tideway, tons, torrent, torrent of rain, trend, tumescence, up,
   upping, upsurge, upswing, uptrend, upturn, volume, washout,
   waterflood, waterspout, waxing, wealth, whelm, whelming, widening,
   world, worlds



The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003):

flood
 v.

    [common]

    1. To overwhelm a network channel with mechanically-generated traffic;
    especially used of IP, TCP/IP, UDP, or ICMP denial-of-service attacks.

    2. To dump large amounts of text onto an IRC channel. This is especially
    rude when the text is uninteresting and the other users are trying to carry
    on a serious conversation. Also used in a similar sense on Usenet.

    3. [Usenet] To post an unusually large number or volume of files on a
    related topic.


The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

flood

    On a real-time network (whether at the level of
   TCP/IP, or at the level of, say, IRC), to send a huge
   amount of data to another user (or a group of users, in a
   channel) in an attempt to annoy him, lock his terminal, or to
   overflow his network buffer and thus lose his network
   connection.

   The basic principles of flooding are that you should have
   better network bandwidth than the person you're trying to
   flood, and that what you do to flood them (e.g., generate ping
   requests) should be *less* resource-expensive for your machine
   to produce than for the victim's machine to deal with.  There
   is also the corrolary that you should avoid being caught.

   Failure to follow these principles regularly produces
   hilarious results, e.g., an IRC user flooding himself off the
   network while his intended victim is unharmed, the attacker's
   flood attempt being detected, and him being banned from the
   network in semi-perpetuity.

   See also pingflood, clonebot and botwar.

   [Jargon File]

   (1997-04-07)


Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary:

Flood
   an event recorded in Gen. 7 and 8. (See DELUGE.) In
   Josh. 24:2, 3, 14, 15, the word "flood" (R.V., "river") means
   the river Euphrates. In Ps. 66:6, this word refers to the river
   Jordan.