English Explanatory Dictionary

drown

English dictionary entry

Meanings

verb
  1. To die from suffocation while immersed in water or other fluid.
  2. To kill by suffocating in water or another liquid.
  3. To be flooded: to be inundated with or submerged in (literally) water or (figuratively) other things; to be overwhelmed.
  4. To inundate, submerge, overwhelm.
  5. To obscure, particularly amid an overwhelming volume of other items.
name
  1. A surname.

Pronunciation

droun /dɹaʊn/ [d̠͡ɹ̠˔ʷaʊn] En-us-drown.ogg /dɹuːn/

Word forms

drown drowns drowning drowned

Etymology

From Middle English drownen, drounen, drunen (“to drown”), of obscure and uncertain origin. The OED suggests an unattested Old English form *drūnian. Harper 2001 points to Old English druncnian, ġedruncnian (> Middle English drunknen, dronknen (“to drown”)), "probably influenced" by Old Norse drukkna (cf. Icelandic drukkna, Danish drukne (“to drown”)). Funk & Wagnall's has 'of uncertain origin'. It has been theorised (see e.g. ODS) that it may represent a direct loan of Old Norse drukkna, but this is described by the OED as being "on phonetic and other grounds [...] highly improbable", unless one considers the possibility of an unattested variant in Old Norse *drunkna.

Synonyms

flood inundate drench noyade

Derived words

a drowning man will clutch at a straw a drowning man will grab at a straw a drowning man will grab at straws a drowning man will grasp at a straw a drowning man will grasp at straws drownable drownage drowned drowned tube drownee drowner drowning drown one's sorrows drown out drownproof drown the miller overdrown surround and drown too much water drowned the miller undrown
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on D Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary