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View synonyms for drought

drought

[ drout ]

noun

  1. a period of dry weather, especially a long one that is injurious to crops.
  2. an extended shortage:

    a drought of good writing.

    Synonyms: famine, paucity, dearth, lack, scarcity, want

  3. Archaic. thirst.


drought

/ draʊt /

noun

  1. a prolonged period of scanty rainfall
  2. a prolonged shortage
  3. See thirst
    an archaic or dialect word for thirst Archaic and Scot formdrouth


drought

/ drout /

  1. A long period of abnormally low rainfall, lasting up to several years.


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Pronunciation Note

Drought and drouth, nouns derived from the adjective dry plus a suffix, are spellings that represent two phonetic developments of the same Old English word, and are pronounced [drout] and [drouth] respectively. The latter pronunciation, therefore, is not a mispronunciation of drought. The now unproductive suffix -th1 and its alternate form -t were formerly used to derive nouns from adjectives or verbs, resulting in such pairs as drouth drought from dry and highth—height (the former now obsolete) from high. In American English, drought with the pronunciation [drout] is common everywhere in educated speech, and is the usual printed form.

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Derived Forms

  • ˈdroughty, adjective

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Word History and Origins

Origin of drought1

First recorded before 1000; Middle English; Old English drūgath, equivalent to drūg- (base of drȳge “dry”) + -ath noun suffix; cognate with Dutch droogte “dryness”; dry, -th 1

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Word History and Origins

Origin of drought1

Old English drūgoth; related to Dutch droogte; see dry

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Example Sentences

It was captioned Preserve Your Forests From Destruction And Protect Your Country From Floods And Drought.

Next, Borlaug helped develop more productive and drought-resistant strains of rice that became adapted widely in Asia.

From the drought in California to the women of ENIAC, The Daily Beast picks the best journalism from around the web this week.

The drought is now killing off century-old California farms.

Coping with drought and marginal soils was a continual struggle.

Tobacco is a strong growing plant resisting heat and drought to a far (p. 018) greater extent than most plants.

Conditions in the new country had gone from bad to worse, and if the season should experience another drought, the worst was come.

One day she had heard a man say, "If there is a drought we shall have the devil to pay with our stock before winter is over."

Of this we have a characteristic example in the ceremony of the aquaelicium, designed to produce rain after a long drought.

A drought upon her waters, and they shall be dried up: because it is a land of idols, and they glory in monstrous things.

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Droste-Hülshoffdroughty