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.

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.

Derived Forms

• ˈdroughty, 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

It has also been extremely dry in California, Oregon, and Washington this summer, with large sections of each state under “severe drought” conditions and some areas reaching “extreme drought.”

From Vox

We also just had a wet winter, meaning the reservoirs and soils aren’t as parched as they have been during past droughts.

From Voice of San Diego

Cold summers, drought, famine and plague devastated societies around the world.

From Quanta Magazine

That’s the amount the United Nations has agreed would prevent catastrophic climate change – like seas that swallow whole coastal cities, really, really bad wildfires and unbearable droughts.

From Voice of San Diego

So the team only enters the deep chambers during periods of drought.

From Science News For Students

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

From The Daily Beast

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

From The Daily Beast

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

From The Daily Beast

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

From The Daily Beast

Coping with drought and marginal soils was a continual struggle.

From The Daily Beast

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

From Project Gutenberg

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

From Project Gutenberg

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."

From Project Gutenberg

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

From Project Gutenberg

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

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• lack
• scarcity

More About Drought

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.

Where does drought come from?

The first records of the word drought in English come from before 1000. It comes from the Old English word drūgath, which is related to the Dutch droogte, meaning “dryness.” The English word dry shares a root with drought.

Droughts can last months and even years. That doesn’t mean there’s no rain at all during that time, but it does mean that there’s a lot less than there usually is. (Most deserts have very low levels of rainfall, but we wouldn’t say they’re experiencing a drought.) Droughts have several negative consequences. First, they create a shortage of water for drinking and for growing crops, which can cause the crops to fail and lead to famine. The excessively dry conditions caused by droughts can also add to the risk of wildfires, which can start more easily and burn more rapidly, using all of the dried plants as their fuel.

When used figuratively, drought refers to a long period without something, as in You complain about not getting a second date but I haven’t had a first date in months—I’m in a real drought. 

The term dry spell can be used as a synonym for both the literal and figurative sense of drought (though, in the literal sense, a dry spell isn’t usually as serious or as long as a drought).

Did you know ... ?

What are some synonyms for drought?

• dry spell

What are some words that share a root or word element with drought? 

• dry

What are some words that often get used in discussing drought?

 

• rain
• rainfall
• water
• precipitation
• conditions
• dry
• famine
• crops
• wildfire

What are some words drought may be commonly confused with?

• draught

How is drought used in real life?

The word drought is commonly used in discussions about what causes droughts, how they affect people, and how they can be prevented.

Germany may be heading toward its third summer of drought in a row due to high temperatures and sparse precipitation. https://t.co/UBzNEXr4XC pic.twitter.com/FVZWM0awjI

— NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) May 1, 2020

The western US will face worsening drought conditions this summer as heat bakes the region.

AccuWeather's complete summer forecast: https://t.co/TfuTDIK2PE pic.twitter.com/4dmDBWWVj5

— AccuWeather (@breakingweather) April 30, 2020

Important to close psychological distance by communicating how climate change is happening here & now. One way is help people join the dots between climate change & local climate-related events (e.g., intensifying drought, more frequent wildfires, intensified hurricanes).

— John Cook (@johnfocook) May 6, 2020

 

 

Try using drought!

Which of the following words is LEAST likely to describe a drought?

A. dangerous
B. long
C. serious
D. short