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say it: i-RUHPT
erupt is a verb meaning "start abruptly". It carries 8 recorded senses.
start to burn or burst into flames
“Marsh gases ignited suddenly”
“The oily rags combusted spontaneously”
break out
“The tooth erupted and had to be extracted”
become active and spew forth lava and rocks
“Vesuvius erupts once in a while”
force out or release suddenly and often violently something pent up
“break into tears”
“erupt in anger”
become raw or open
“He broke out in hives”
“My skin breaks out when I eat strawberries”
“Such boils tend to recrudesce”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for erupt come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.