drought
/dɹaʊt/ noun, proper noun
Forms droughts drouth druft
- noun A period of unusually low rainfall, longer and more severe than a dry spell. “His village had faced a drought twice.”
- noun (by extension, informal) A longer than expected term without success, particularly in sport. “Sri Lanka ended their ten-game drought with a consolation win over Bangladesh.”
- noun (archaic) dryness, aridness, dry heat
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English droughte, droghte, drouȝte, from Old English drūgaþ. Cognate with Dutch droogte, Low German Dröögde. By surface analysis, dry + -t (abstract nominal suffix).
Webster’s 1913
- noun Dryness; want of rain or of water; especially, such dryness of the weather as affects the earth, and prevents the growth of plants; aridity.
- noun Thirst; want of drink. Johnson.
Etymology [OE. droght, drougth, dru, AS. druga, from drugian to dry. See Dry, and cf. Drouth, which shows the original final sound.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “drought”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details