drizzle
/ˈdɹɪzəl/ verb, noun
Forms drizzles drizzling drizzled
- verb (impersonal) To rain lightly. “We had planned a picnic for Joe's birthday, but it ended up drizzling all day.”
- verb (ambitransitive) To shed slowly in minute drops or particles.
- verb (cooking, transitive) To pour slowly and evenly, especially oil or honey in cooking. “The recipe says to toss the salad and then drizzle olive oil on it.”
- verb (cooking, transitive) To cover by pouring in this manner. “The recipe says to toss the salad and then drizzle it in olive oil.”
- verb (slang) To urinate. “She'll be right back, had to drizzle before we leave.”
- verb (dated) To carry out parfilage, the process of unravelling.
- noun Light rain.
- noun (physics, weather) Very small, numerous, and uniformly dispersed water drops, mist, or sprinkle. Unlike fog droplets, drizzle falls to the ground. “No longer pouring, the rain outside slowed down to a faint drizzle.”
- noun (slang) Water. “Stop drinking all of my drizzle!”
- noun Something that is drizzled.
- noun (baking) A cake onto which icing, honey or syrup has been drizzled in an artistic manner.
Synonyms
Etymology
Perhaps a back-formation from dryseling, a dissimilated variant of Middle English drysning (“a falling of dew”), from Northumbrian Old English drysnan (“to extinguish”), related to Old English drēosan (“to fall, to decline”), making it cognate to modern English droze and drowse. Compare also dialectal Swedish drösla.
Webster’s 1913
- verb To rain slightly in very small drops; to fall, as water from the clouds, slowly and in fine particles; as, it drizzles; drizzling drops or rain. "Drizzling tears." Spenser.
- verb To shed slowly in minute drops or particles. "The air doth drizzle dew." Shak.
- noun Fine rain or mist. Halliwell.
Etymology [Prop. freq. of AS. dreósan to fall. See Dreary.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “drizzle”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details