drought

Also drouth

[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, want, lack, scarcity

3. Archaic.,  thirst.

drought

/ draʊt /

noun

1. a prolonged period of scanty rainfall

2. a prolonged shortage

3. Archaic and Scot form: drouth. an archaic or dialect word for thirst

drought

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

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 and 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 is common everywhere in educated speech, and is the usual printed form.

Other Word Forms

• droughty adjective

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of drought¹

Old English drūgoth; related to Dutch droogte; see _dry

Example Sentences

The early-season-storm forecast coincides with the official return of La Niña, a climate pattern usually responsible for driving drought in Southern California.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

A crippling drought is depleting its reservoirs, and the city expects it won’t be able to meet the area’s water demand in as soon as 18 months.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

The Cubs won their first World Series title since 1908 in 2016 to end North America's longest pro sports title drought.

Read more on Barron's

The final four hours and 58 minutes of that drought might have aged them another 24 years all at once.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Unfortunately, the giant garter snake is becoming a casualty of California’s brutal cycle of droughts and habitat destruction — as much of the Central Valley converts to agriculture or infrastructure development, according to the U.S.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• lack 
• scarcity 

When To Use

What does drought mean?

A drought is a long period with no rain or unusually low levels of rain or other precipitation.Because weather and climate are different in different places throughout the world, there is no single definition of what counts as a drought. However, it always refers to a significant period of dry weather. Droughts have many harmful effects, including water shortages, crop failure, and in some cases famine, among other things. The word is often used in the phrase drought conditions, referring to very dry conditions resulting from a lack of rainfall.Drought can also be used in a figurative way to refer to an extended shortage of or long period without something, as in The city has the longest championship drought in all of sports. Example: The drought continued for more than three weeks and wildfires started to appear.