Where does the word “abound” come from and What does it mean?

When things are in such profusion as to be like the waves of the sea overflowing the land, we may properly say that they abound.

Literally, that is what the word means.

It comes to us from the Latin, abundo, to overflow, from ab, from, and unda, wave, billow, surge. Our words abundant and abundance have the same poetic source.