droop
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: drūp
ipa: /ˈdɹuːp/
rhymes: -uːp
homophone: drupe
Forms: form: droops
form: drooping
form: drooped
form: drooped
Etymology: Inherited from Middle English droupen, from Old Norse drúpa (“to droop”), from Proto-Germanic *drūpaną, *drupōną (“to hang down, drip, drop”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrewb- (“to drip, drop”). Doublet of drip and drop.
Senses: examples: text: On the brown harvest tree
Droops the red cherry.
ref: 1866, John Keegan Casey, “Maire My Girl”, in A Wreath of Shamrocks, Dublin: Robert S. McGee, page 20:
text: Long before Shap platform showed up around a corner and the two arms on the gradient post drooped in both directions at once, Duchess of Buccleuch's amiable throbbing purr at the stack [funnel, chimney] had become a fierce freight-engine bark, as she resolutely dragged at her enormous load.
ref: 1949 January and February, F. G. Roe, “I Saw Three Englands–1”, in Railway Magazine, page 12:
text: a. 1992, quote attributed to Sylvester Stallone
I'm not handsome in the classical sense. The eyes droop, the mouth is crooked, the teeth aren't straight, the voice sounds like a Mafioso pallbearer, but somehow it all works.
synonyms: lop
glosses: To hang downward; to sag.
examples: text: Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;
While night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.
ref: c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
text: The Grapes that on it hung were black, and all
The Vines supported and from drooping staid
With silver Props, that down they could not fall […]
ref: 1676, Thomas Hobbes, transl., Homer’s Iliads in English, London: William Crook, Book 18, p. 289:
text: Long after his cigar burnt bitter, he sat with eyes fixed on the blaze. When the flames at last began to flicker and subside, his lids fluttered, then drooped; but he had lost all reckoning of time when he opened them again to find Miss Erroll in furs and ball-gown kneeling on the hearth[…].
ref: 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter III, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
text: Others who conscientiously attended the Technical College at night often drooped over their desks in a doze, and one does not wonder at it.
ref: 1944 September and October, A Former Pupil, “Some Memories of Crewe Works—I”, in Railway Magazine, page 285:
text: His head had drooped with his hair across his face.
ref: 2010, john g rees, Halocline:
text: She was trying to hang in, but her chin was drooping onto her chest.
ref: 2012, Howie Carr, Hard Knocks:
glosses: To slowly become limp; to bend gradually.
examples: text: But wherefore do you droop? why look you sad?
ref: c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:
text: Amidst the peaceful Triumphs of his Reign,
What wonder if the kindly beams he shed
Reviv’d the drooping Arts again […]
ref: 1685, John Dryden, Threnodia Augustalis, London: Jacob Tonson, XII, p. 17:
text: I saw him accidentally once or twice about 10 Days before he died, and observed he began very much to Droop and Languish […]
ref: 1711, [Jonathan Swift], Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, London: […] John Morphew […], published 1711, →OCLC, page 284:
text: I’ll animate the Soldier’s drooping Courage,
With Love of Freedom, and Contempt of Life.
ref: 1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act IV, scene i, page 5:
text: And I should tell him all my pain,
⁠And how my life had droop’d of late,
⁠And he should sorrow o’er my state
And marvel what possess’d my brain; […]
ref: 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XIV”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 22:
glosses: To lose all energy, enthusiasm or happiness; to flag.
examples: text: […] pithless arms, like to a wither’d vine
That droops his sapless branches to the ground;
ref: 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First 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 II, scene v]:
text: 1892, Arthur Christopher Benson, “Knapweed” in Le Cahier Jaune: Poems, Eton: privately printed, p. 62,
Down in the mire he droops his head;
Forgotten, not forgiven.
glosses: To allow to droop or sink.
examples: text: […] let us forth,
I never from thy side henceforth to stray,
Wherere our days work lies, though now enjoind
Laborious, till day droop […]
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book XI”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 175-178:
text: […] and now when day
Droop’d, and the chapel tinkled, mixt with those
Six hundred maidens clad in purest white […]
ref: 1847, Alfred Tennyson, “Part II”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 46:
glosses: To proceed downward, or toward a close; to decline.
Derived terms: adroop
droopage
drooper