drown
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: droun
ipa: /dɹaʊn/
ipa: [d̠͡ɹ̠˔ʷaʊn]
ipa: /dɹuːn/
rhymes: -aʊn
Forms: form: drowns
form: drowning
form: drowned
form: drowned
Etymology: From Middle English drownen, drounen, drunen (“to drown”), of obscure and uncertain origin.
The OED suggests an unattested Old English form *drūnian. Harper 2001 points to Old English druncnian, ġedruncnian (> Middle English drunknen, dronknen (“to drown”)), "probably influenced" by Old Norse drukkna (cf. Icelandic drukkna, Danish drukne (“to drown”)). Funk & Wagnall's has 'of uncertain origin'. It has been theorised (see e.g. ODS) that it may represent a direct loan of Old Norse drukkna, but this is described by the OED as being "on phonetic and other grounds [...] highly improbable", unless one considers the possibility of an unattested variant in Old Norse *drunkna.
Senses: examples: text: When I was a baby, I nearly drowned in the bathtub.
text: Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild / Continuance tames the one; the other wild, / Like an unpractised swimmer plunging still, / With too much labour drowns for want of skill.
ref: 1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC:
synonyms: word: drench
glosses: To die from suffocation while immersed in water or other fluid.
examples: text: The car thief fought with an officer and tried to drown a police dog before being shot while escaping.
text: The pretty-vaulting sea refused to drown me, / Knowing that thou wouldst have me drown’d on shore, / With tears as salt as sea, through thy unkindness:
ref: 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
synonyms: word: drench
glosses: To kill by suffocating in water or another liquid.
examples: text: We are drowning in information but starving for wisdom.
text: Penny Guy: Bloody hell, Rog, whadda you want? / Roger O'Neill: To drown in your arms and hide in yer eyes, darlin'.
ref: 1990, House of Cards, season 1, episode 2:
text: The first-century Jewish woman Miriam of Nazareth, also held in faith to be Theotokos, the God-bearer, is arguably the most celebrated woman in the Christian tradition. One could almost drown surveying the ways different eras have honored her in painting, sculpture, icons, architecture, music and poetry; venerated her with titles, liturgies, prayers and feasts; and taught about her in spiritual writings, theology and official doctrine.
ref: 2000 June 17, Elizabeth A. Johnson, “Mary of Nazareth: Friend of God and Prophet”, in America, volume 182, number 21:
glosses: To be flooded: to be inundated with or submerged in (literally) water or (figuratively) other things; to be overwhelmed.
examples: text: He drowns his sorrows in buckets of chocolate ice cream.
text: Though most men being in sensuall pleasures drownd, / It seemes their Soules but in the Senses are.
ref: 1599, John Davies, Nosce Teipsum, London: John Standish, page 19:
text: Come, thou monarch of the vine, / Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne! / In thy fats our cares be drown’d, / With thy grapes our hairs be crown’d:
ref: c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene vii]:
text: My private Voice is drown’d amid the Senate’s.
ref: 1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act V, scene ii, page 23:
text: Unluckily that worthy Officer having, in a literal Sense, taken his Fill of Liquor, had been some Time retired to his Bolster, where he was snoaring so loud, that it was not easy to convey a Noise in at his Ears capable of drowning that which issued from his Nostrils.
ref: 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter XIV, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume II, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book VII, pages 71–72:
glosses: To inundate, submerge, overwhelm.
examples: text: The answers intelligence services seek are often drowned in the flood of information they can now gather.
qualifier: usually passive voice
glosses: To obscure, particularly amid an overwhelming volume of other items.
Synonyms: sense: to kill by suffocating in water or another liquid
word: noyade
sense: to cover, as with water
word: flood
sense: to cover, as with water
word: inundate
Derived terms: a drowning man will clutch at a straw
drownable
drownage
drowned
drowned tube
drownee
drowner
drowning
drown one's sorrows
drown out
drownproof
drown the miller
overdrown
surround and drown
too much water drowned the miller
undrown