Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Flood \Flood\, 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.

            A covenant never to destroy The earth again by
            flood.                                --Milton.

   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.

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

   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.

   4. Menstrual disharge; menses. --Harvey.

   {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.

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.

   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.

Source : WordNet®

flood
     n 1: the rising of a body of water and its overflowing onto
          normally dry land; "plains fertilized by annual
          inundations" [syn: {inundation}, {deluge}, {alluvion}]
     2: an overwhelming number or amount; "a flood of requests"; "a
        torrent of abuse" [syn: {inundation}, {deluge}, {torrent}]
     3: light that is a source of artificial illumination having a
        broad beam; used in photography [syn: {floodlight}, {flood
        lamp}, {photoflood}]
     4: a large flow [syn: {overflow}, {outpouring}]
     5: the act of flooding; filling to overflowing [syn: {flowage}]
     6: the inward flow of the tide; "a tide in the affairs of men
        which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune"
        -Shakespeare

flood
     v 1: fill quickly beyond capacity; as with a liquid; "the
          basement was inundated after the storm"; "The images
          flooded his mind" [syn: {deluge}, {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: {oversupply}, {glut}]
     4: become filled to overflowing; "Our basement flooded during
        the heavy rains"

Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

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)