fill

1 of 2

verb

ˈfil

filled; filling; fills

Synonyms of fill next

transitive verb

: to put into as much as can be held or conveniently contained

fill a cup with water

: to supply with a full complement

the class is filled

c(1)

: to cause to swell or billow

wind filled the sails

(2)

: to trim (a sail) to catch the wind

: to raise the level of with fill

filled land

: to repair the cavities of (teeth)

: to stop up : obstruct

wreckage filled the channel

: to stop up the interstices, crevices, or pores of (a material, such as cloth, wood, or leather) with a foreign substance

: feed, satiate

fill livestock

: satisfy, fulfill

fills all requirements

: make out, complete

—used with out or in

fill out a formfill in the blanks

: to draw the playing cards necessary to complete

fill a straight or flush in poker

: to occupy the whole of

smoke filled the room

: to spread through

music filled the air

: to make full

a mind filled with fantasies

: to possess and perform the duties of : hold

fill an office

: to place a person in

fill a vacancy

: to supply as directed

fill a prescription

: to cover the surface of with a layer of precious metal

a gold-filled bracelet

intransitive verb

: to become full

the rivers filled

fill

2 of 2

noun

: a full supply

especially : a quantity that satisfies or satiates

eat your fill

: something that fills: such as

: material used to fill a receptacle, cavity, passage, or low place

: a bit of instrumental music that fills the pauses between phrases (as of a vocalist or soloist)

: artificial light used in photography to reduce or eliminate shadows

—often used attributively

fill flash

Phrases

fill one's shoes

: to take over one's job, position, or responsibilities

No one will be able to fill his shoes after he retires.

Example Sentences

Verb May I fill your glass for you? She filled her house with antiques. His massive body filled the doorway. He has enough books to fill a library. Two hundred people filled the room. fill a sheet of paper with writing a vase filled with flowers stadiums filled with cheering fans The rivers have filled and are close to flooding. The stadium filled more than an hour before the game. Noun They delivered a truckload of fill for the trench. we ripped the tag off years ago, so we have no idea what the fill in that pillow is See More

Recent Examples on the Web

Verb

Last Thursday, an illustrious and truly global crowd congregated at Paris's Salle Pleyel theatre for a celebratory evening filled with champagne, to toast to the 2023 Cartier's Women's Initiative, a program dedicated to mentoring and offering aid to women entrepreneurs. —

Isiah Magsino, Town & Country, 18 May 2023 The formula that delivers The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and The Bachelor in Paradise will now include a version filled with boomers looking for love. —

Olivia Evans, Women's Health, 18 May 2023 The 2023 version is 84-pages long and filled with charts and tables that tell the story of cancers in America, state by state, cancer by cancer, and by gender, race, and ethnicity. —

Men's Health, 17 May 2023 During last week’s Academy of Country Music Awards, a crowd filled with cowboy hats roared as Dolly Parton’s tent-like skirt detached to reveal her leather outfit. —

María Luisa Paúl, Washington Post, 17 May 2023 The artwork was completed after the Spanish artist's arrival in Paris in 1900, and showcases a buzzing scene captured in a Parisian dining establishment of the same name, filled with couples sipping wine and enjoying a chat, per CNN. —

Escher Walcott, Peoplemag, 17 May 2023 Bumblebees were trained to pull a string – in other words, to use a tool – connected to a plastic disk with hidden depressions filled with sugar water. —

Stephen Buchmann, The Conversation, 17 May 2023 Instead, there are sparks and specters: A denture-making lab was once an ice cream parlor; a prison where a man leapt to his death is now a school filled with stylish teens. —

Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 May 2023 The morning event promotes children’s health and raises money for the hospital with a festival at the Santa Monica Pier filled with activities for the whole family — including beach volleyball, soccer and dancing. —

Steven Vargas, Los Angeles Times, 17 May 2023

Noun

After the Sacketts obtained local building permits and started placing sand and gravel fill on the lot, the EPA ordered the work to stop and directed the couple to restore the property to its natural state, asserting the land contained wetlands subject to protection under the Clean Water Act. —

Melissa Quinn, CBS News, 25 May 2023 Onstage, his bash-and-thud was all forward motion, forcing everyone in the building to keep up — including the crowd, who seemed to be acting out Barker’s best drum fills with bro hugs, high-fives and other physical expressions of genuine communal happiness. —

Chris Richards, Washington Post, 24 May 2023 The brand’s down fill is made of European white down (85 percent clusters, 15 percent down and feather fibers) and the down alternative is made of 100 percent hypoallergenic microfiber. —

Danielle Directo-meston, The Hollywood Reporter, 23 May 2023 The Flatweave Dining Bench has an acacia wood frame and contains a responsible wool cushion and natural latex fill. —

Alyssa Gautieri, Good Housekeeping, 16 May 2023 As a result of being a left-handed drummer playing on a right-handed kit, Starr’s drum fills were uniquely constructed and executed. —

George Varga, San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 May 2023 Their rectangular wires, versus flat ones, offer several advantages: A superior fill factor in gaps to carry more current, with that improved efficiency allowing better temperature management and improving motor life-span and reliability. —

IEEE Spectrum, 22 Apr. 2023 The fill is a hybrid, with coils on the bottom and foam on top to help prevent motion transfer. —

Lexie Sachs, goodhousekeeping.com, 18 Apr. 2023 The drummer would play exactly every drum fill Steve would create as producer. —

Andy Greene, Rolling Stone, 27 Mar. 2023 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'fill.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Verb

Middle English fillen, fullen, fellen, going back to Old English fyllan, going back to Germanic *fulljan- (whence also Old Frisian fella "to fill," Old Saxon fullian, Old High German fullen, Old Icelandic fylla, Gothic fulljan), weak verb derivative from the stem of *fulla- full entry 1

Noun

(sense 1) Middle English fille, fulle, felle, going back to Old English fyllu, fyll, going back to Germanic *full-īn- (whence also Middle Dutch volle "full supply, fill," Old High German fullī, follī, Old Icelandic fylli, Gothic ufarfullei "superfluity"), from *fulla- full entry 1 + *-īn-, noun suffix of quality; (sense 2) derivative of fill entry 1

Note: As with other nouns originally formed with the suffix *-īn-, Old English has reclassed the nouns as regular *-ō feminine nouns by association with the suffix *-iþō.

First Known Use

Verb

before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at transitive sense 1a

Noun

before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler

The first known use of fill was before the 12th century

See more words from the same century