- past participle of draw.
drawn
Americanverb
adjective
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tense; haggard.
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eviscerated, as a fowl.
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Glassmaking.
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of or relating to the stem of a drinking glass that has been formed by stretching from a small mass of molten metal left at the base of the bowl of the vessel.
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of or relating to glass that is drawn over a series of rollers as it comes from the furnace.
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adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of drawn
First recorded in 1150–1200, for the adjective
Explanation
Drawn describes the look of someone who is tired, overworked, or ill. People will worry about you if your face looks drawn every morning because you stay up so late doing homework. The adjective drawn comes from the Old English verb dragan, which means to pull or to drag. Dragan is also the root for the artistic sense of the verb "draw," but drawn doesn't describe art. It can mean pulled closed, however. The drawn drapes keep your room so dark that it's always dark as night in there, which is good for sleeping, but bad when you have to get up early for school.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
As soon as the numbers were drawn, Bailey would move fast - immediately lobbying the seven MPs on the list, presenting them with bills, oven-ready for presentation.
From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2026
“We do not believe conclusions about an author’s work should be drawn from AI-detection tools that have been shown to produce false positives,” said a spokesperson for Simon & Schuster.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
Local farmers have also poured in to help battle the blaze, with a ballet of tractors pulling in tankers of water drawn from a nearby lake.
From Barron's ● Aug. 17, 2026
Chief executive Matthew Pavlich said the club was "still piecing together exactly what's transpired", and would not be drawn on what the specific allegations are.
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026
The betrayal of it, the way he had grabbed at her heart, had drawn her out in a way no one ever had...
From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
