What's the difference between inundate and spate?

Inundate


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To cover with a flood; to overflow; to deluge; to flood; as, the river inundated the town.
  • (v. t.) To fill with an overflowing abundance or superfluity; as, the country was inundated with bills of credit.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) That was what the earlier debate over “currency wars” – when emerging markets complained about being inundated by financial inflows from the US – was all about.
  • (2) Allen's team has used the new technique to work out whether global warming worsened the UK floods in autumn 2000, which inundated 10,000 properties, disrupted power supplies and led to train services being cancelled, motorways closed and 11,000 people evacuated from their homes - at a total cost of £1bn.
  • (3) Where basement membrane and perivascular clefts were not yet inundated with HRP, sites of vesicular emptying of HRP at the tissue front were identified.
  • (4) He said since he made those comments he had been "inundated with accounts from people … saying there are indeed many cases where people are left without benefits, without any support, for sometimes weeks on end".
  • (5) Yet, when Summers' name came up, the White House was inundated with petitions: 20 senators opposing his nomination this summer , 300 economists (300!)
  • (6) There have been dozens of inundations in the course of the world's history, and whoever wrote this bit of the Bible had probably experienced one.
  • (7) As a second year social work student, I'm inundated with lots of information, from work placements and lectures to reading lists.
  • (8) The islands that make up the Maldives are threatened with complete inundation, probably by the end of the century, as ice sheets melt and sea levels rise catastrophically, thanks to global warming.
  • (9) As concerns the valence of the natural focus, the most important was the inundated forest in the Drnholec locality.
  • (10) Crop-producing areas have been inundated, dealing a crippling blow to the agriculture-based economy and threatening a food crisis.
  • (11) We are looking to make sure the international community can assist in the resettlement exercise and rebuilding some of the communities.” Climate change is likely to be a massive driver of forced migration over the next century, as densely populated, low-lying areas become unliveable because of rising sea levels, inundation, and salinity.
  • (12) The result is the inundation of islands from higher tides and surges.
  • (13) Mollath has been inundated with public support in the form of thousands of letters and internet posts, many comparing his fight to that of David versus Goliath.
  • (14) … and the effects on migration One of the many impacts of climate breakdown – aside from such minor matters as the inundation of cities, the loss of food production and curtailment of water supplies – will be the mass movement of people, to an extent that dwarfs current migration.
  • (15) Small island states such as Tuvalu and the Maldives are already threatened by inundation.
  • (16) One other issue is raised in Tewkesbury: the response of Severn Trent to the inundation of its water treatment plant at The Mythe, which left 140,000 homes without running water.
  • (17) The floods inundated rice fields just as they were to be harvested.
  • (18) And at this rate we will never find out.” Among the sites worst affected by trawlers is Doggerland, a vast area that was inhabited during the Mesolithic period 8,000 years ago, but has since been inundated by the waters of the North Sea.
  • (19) Finding the earlier results generally applicable, it presents a model of the function of stimulus intensity control in schizophrenia, which suggests that acute schizophrenics are particularly vulnerable to being inundated by stimuli, and therefore, that in order to protect themselves, they tend to reduce the perceived intensity of stimuli.
  • (20) The Florida resort lies less than 10 feet above sea level; an increasing number of tropical storms are inundating the city; and it is built on a dome of porous limestone which is absorbing the rising seawater.

Spate


Definition:

  • (n.) A river flood; an overflow or inundation.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In recent years, a spate of health care reform proposals have emerged on the American agenda.
  • (2) The processing centre been seized by more than a month of daily protests, as well as a spate of suicide attempts over the last 48 hours.
  • (3) The year since Jo Cox’s death has seen rapid political change around the world: unexpected election results, a rise in digital interference in democratic elections by foreign powers , and a spate of appalling terrorist attacks.
  • (4) There has been a spate of thefts of rhino horns and elephant tusks from European museums, zoos and auction houses in recent years, amid a rising illegal trade in poached or stolen ivory .
  • (5) A spate of suicides by employees of an electronics giant in China has fuelled concern about the pressures of factory life and the emotional vulnerability of young employees.
  • (6) Angry demonstrations over the government’s refusal to relieve Kobani , the Syrian canton under siege from the brutal group calling itself Islamic State (Isis), led to a spate of deaths.
  • (7) A series of measures have been brought in since the December attack aimed at making women safer, but despite these, there has been a spate of attacks on women in Delhi since the beginning of March, including four reported assaults on girls under 18.
  • (8) Rosenberg agreed, pointing out that the spate of bad news was falling at a critical time in the election cycle, when senior politicians had to finally decide whether to throw their hat in the ring.
  • (9) An estimate is made of the frequency and effects of spates.
  • (10) The service has been hit by a spate of station closures over the past 18 months, including TheJazz, OneWord, Core and Capital Life.
  • (11) It's the first interview he's done since his marriage and divorce and the split-up of the Ordinary Boys, and it all comes rushing out in a spate, a tangle of chronological confusions and jokes, and groans when I quote some of his old interviews back at him, and statements of contrition, and digressions about Dawkins or whatever, and here's the confounding thing - he's really nothing like I was expecting, not indie-boy sulky, or attempting to play it cool, he's just talkative and engaging, and he has a sense of humour about himself that, from reading his previous interviews, I wouldn't have even guessed at.
  • (12) Calls are mounting for hardline Jewish settlers to be classified as terrorists after a spate of attacks on Palestinian property in the West Bank and Israel , and threats of violence towards Israeli soldiers.
  • (13) As in journals elsewhere there followed a spate of articles reporting various aspects of cocaine and its usage, including an abortive attempt to find an alternative agent.
  • (14) Merkel’s office has not commented on her dictionary nomination so far, though they might arguably have been able to insist the word was rude or discriminatory, on the same grounds that the nominated word “Alpha Kevin”, meaning the “thickest person of all” was removed from Langenscheidt list, after a reported spate of complaints from people called Kevin, or their parents.
  • (15) Shirin Ebadi , the Iranian Nobel peace prizewinner, joined human rights organisations in February this year in appealing to Iran to impose a moratorium on executions – but after a brief pause following a spate of adverse international publicity, the pace of judicial killings has accelerated again.
  • (16) A spate of US companies have sought acquisitions in the UK and elsewhere this year to gain a lower rate of corporation tax.
  • (17) The coalition's radical shake-up of the planning system was designed to unleash a spate of new housebuilding.
  • (18) The chair of the Senate subcommittee on privacy, technology and the law wrote to the company last month setting out ten questions after a spate of incidents that he said indicated a “troubling disregard for customers’ privacy”.
  • (19) "A toxic mix of gold, greed and alcohol has resulted in a spate of brutal murders in the interior," the newspaper reported, cataloguing killings involving miners, jewellers and shopkeepers working at the gold mines.
  • (20) Donald Trump has made the most direct appeal of his campaign to African American voters as he battles to offset dismal polling among black voters and draw political capital from a recent spate of racially charged unrest in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.