swallow up

verb swallows up · swallowing up · swallowed up

1. To completely enclose or envelop. Actually the job was almost the despair of those early pioneers, for the surface was a "quaking morass," the surrounding district was undrained, and no sooner than soil was deposited than it was swallowed up, with no apparent effect, for the sponginess of the land remained unaltered.
2. To take over or absorb something (especially an organisation) so it no longer has a separate identity; to assimilate. (Thus Engels expected Austria-Hungary to swallow up the small Balkan countries; Poland, as a historical nation, should, he thought, be restored and include in its dominion the less developed peoples to the east-Lithuanians, White Russians, and Ukrainians.)
3. To voraciously consume resources, such as money; to devour.