drawl
UK /dɹɔːl/ · US /dɹɔl/ verb, noun
Forms drawls drawling drawled
- verb (transitive) To drag on slowly and heavily; to dawdle or while away time indolently.
- verb (transitive) To utter or pronounce in a dull, spiritless tone, as if by dragging out the utterance.
- verb (intransitive) To move slowly and heavily; to move in a dull, slow, lazy manner.
- verb (intransitive) To speak with a slow, spiritless utterance, as from affectation, laziness, or lack of interest.
- noun A way of speaking slowly while lengthening vowel sounds and running words together, characteristic of some Southern US accents, as well as Broad Australian, Broad New Zealand, and Scots.
Etymology
From a modern frequentative form of draw, equivalent to draw + -le. Compare draggle. Compare also Dutch dralen (“to drag out, delay, linger, tarry, dawdle”), Old Danish dravle (“to linger, loiter”), Icelandic dralla (“to loiter, linger”).
Webster’s 1913
- verb To utter in a slow, lengthened tone.
- verb To speak with slow and lingering utterance, from laziness, lack of spirit, affectation, etc. Theologians and moralists . . . talk mostly in a drawling and dreaming way about it. Landor.
- noun A lengthened, slow monotonous utterance.
Etymology [Prob. fr. draw: cf. D. dralen to linger, tarry, Icel. dralla to loiter. See Draw, and cf. Draggle.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “drawl”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details