drowse
Americanverb (used without object)
-
drowses,
present (3rd person singular)
-
drowsed,
past participle, past
-
drowsing
present participle
-
to be sleepy or half-asleep.
-
to be dull or sluggish.
verb (used with object)
-
drowses,
present (3rd person singular)
-
drowsed,
past participle, past
-
drowsing
present participle
-
to pass or spend (time) in drowsing (often followed byaway ).
He drowsed away the morning.
-
to make sleepy.
noun
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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drowsesimple
-
drowsessimple
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have drowsedperfect
-
has drowsedperfect
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am drowsingprogressive
-
are drowsingprogressive
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is drowsingprogressive
-
have been drowsingperfect progressive
-
has been drowsingperfect progressive
Past
-
drowsedsimple
-
had drowsedperfect
-
was drowsingprogressive
-
were drowsingprogressive
-
had been drowsingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of drowse
before 900; Old English drūsian to droop, become sluggish (not recorded in ME); akin to Old English drēosan to fall
Explanation
To doze lightly, or nearly fall asleep, is to drowse. If you stay up too late watching scary movies, you might start to drowse the next morning in English class. You've probably found yourself beginning to drowse when you're very sleepy or bored. You'll know you're starting to drowse when your eyelids get heavy and your mind wanders. Be careful though—if you drowse too long at the beach, you may end up with a sunburn! Drowse comes from the adjective drowsy, from an Old English root meaning "sink."
Vocabulary lists containing drowse
Tolkien Reading Day, List 9
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Charlotte's Web
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Festival of Sleep Day
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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.
See Examples For:
The town's park benches are crowded with bargain widowers -- husbands who drowse in the sunshine while their wives continue the hunt.
From Time Magazine Archive
Once ashore, the voyagers were soon far too busy to lose themselves in the drowse of flowers.
From Time Magazine Archive
In Kearny, N.J., police were inclined to believe Station Attendant Louis Washington's story that he had slept through two burglaries of Red's Trucking Terminal when he fell into a drowse during questioning at police headquarters.
From Time Magazine Archive
In the Japanese Diet, Premier Yoshida will often drowse through the opposition speeches, sometimes bestirring himself to deal with questions: "I will not answer that."
From Time Magazine Archive
“Twitching noase be one neame,” answered the hedgehog obstinately, “and a-twitching of that noase be another, me- aster. Now you move along, kind Measter Brock, and leave a poor crofter to teak ’is winter drowse.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
Wrinkled as a crone, it drowses and yawns, never really wakes or sleeps soundly, sucks weakly, is capable of a faint squeak, grunt, bleat or wail.
From Time Magazine Archive
Up north at Basle in the German-speaking neck of Switzerland drowses a bleak building once the Hotel de I'Univers, today the financial watch tower not only of Europe and Asia but of the entire world.
From Time Magazine Archive
Hot sun fries the big stadium at Southern University in Baton Rouge, La. The track meet drowses through the sweet tedium of late afternoon.
From Time Magazine Archive
He drowses at will in Cabinet meetings, always snaps wide awake when the discussion returns to finance.
From Time Magazine Archive
Werner sits in the back of the Opel; Volkheimer drowses on the bench behind him.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
The diary comics of interactions between stick-figure depictions of Wertz and her son, Felix, will resonate with anyone who has ever drowsed through days with a newborn.
From Salon ● Jun. 27, 2026
Of the 63 subjects who dropped the glass as they drowsed, 26 did so after they had already passed through N1 sleep.
From Scientific American ● Apr. 3, 2022
After staying up all night at the Stork Club, Mr. Roche drowsed off midway through the early-morning interview.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 2, 2019
And the littlest one drowsed through it all.
From Time Magazine Archive
Sunshine flooded the thirsty lawn, flowers blazed, trees drowsed in the breeze.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
All across the ravaged Earth, the cracked foundations of the twentieth century were drowsing, waking, and recognizing themselves.
From Slate ● Nov. 28, 2020
Late one night the drowsing pro got a phone call at home.
From Golf Digest ● Apr. 17, 2020
While summer often wakes me at 4am with dawn, in winter I can sleep for hours, surrendering to my bed shortly after 9pm, and drowsing there until my morning alarm.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 9, 2020
Then I was in motion, drowsing on a bus, a grizzled figure seated beside me, Calvin Schiraldi again.
From Salon ● Jun. 20, 2015
Nina was drowsing on a stool tucked into the corner by the table, Inej’s hand grasped loosely in her own.
From "Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo
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.
