Definition of "engulph"

Yet even then beyond the reach of any plummet—'out of the belly of hell'—when the whale grounded upon the ocean's utmost bones, even then, God heard the engulphed, repenting prophet when he cried.

1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley

The uproar of the sea, the yell of the Indians, the rapidity with which the boat at intervals was driven, threatening at every moment to be engulphed, might have infused terror into the most undaunted; […]

1838, [Letitia Elizabeth] Landon (indicated as editor), chapter XV, in Duty and Inclination: […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], page 219

[Y]ou have to dig the moor and dry the marsh, to bid the morass give forth instead of engulphing, and to wring the honey and oil out of the rock.

1857, John Ruskin, “Lecture I”, in The Political Economy of Art: Being the Substance (with Additions) of Two Lectures Delivered at Manchester, July 10th and 13th, 1857, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], page 17

[C]louds of dark sorrow and sadness, Engulphing all pleasure and gladness, Entombing the soul.

1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1965, page 44