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The Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s hit which U.S. region the hardest?

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drought

American  

[drout] / draʊt /

Also drouth

noun

• droughts
  plural

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.

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drought British  

/ 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

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drought Scientific  

/ drout /

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

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Pronunciation

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.

Usage

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.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• droughty
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• droughts
  plural

Etymology

Origin of drought

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

Explanation

When there is a drought somewhere, there's not enough rainfall. In certain areas, a drought can last for weeks, months, sometimes even years! Forget about running your lawn sprinkler during a drought; the water is needed for drinking, bathing, and toilet flushing. Another way drought can be used is to refer to a shortage of something (other than rainfall) that lasts for a long period of time, like a drought in job growth during a recession. Typically a drought is not a good thing and something you hope to avoid. For example, if your friend Kenny hasn't gone on a date in five years, it's safe to say that he is having a romantic drought.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

drought droughts

The system that protects us from floods cannot help us out of drought.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026

"The strengthening El Nino will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others," Saulo cautioned.

From Barron's ● Sep. 17, 2026

Above-average rainfall is needed across England for the next seven months for all areas to recover from drought by spring 2027, according to new research.

From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026

Their preferred rivers and creeks had gone dry from a record drought.

From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026

California had been in a drought for ten of the thirteen years she’d been alive.

From "Two Degrees" by Alan Gratz

The droughts might come to an end this year.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2026

Heat waves, droughts and wildfires are making northern regions of Spain, France and Italy increasingly attractive to buyers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 13, 2026

During severe droughts, these normally wet landscapes can dry enough to ignite.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 6, 2026

They are vital sources of water supply to rivers, which are the first to struggle in summer droughts, and could be another solution to water shortages.

From BBC ● Aug. 29, 2026

A mega-Nino in the eleventh century may well have caused the droughts of those years.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

Related Words

• lack
• scarcity