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drown

verb
/dɹaʊn/

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.

  1. inherited from drownen

Definitions

  1. To die from suffocation while immersed in water or other fluid.

    • When I was a baby, I nearly drowned in the bathtub.
    • 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.

  2. To kill by suffocating in water or another liquid.

    • The car thief fought with an officer and tried to drown a police dog before being shot while escaping.
    • 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:

  3. To be flooded

    To be flooded: to be inundated with or submerged in (literally) water or (figuratively) other things; to be overwhelmed.

    • We are drowning in information but starving for wisdom.
    • Penny Guy: Bloody hell, Rog, whadda you want? / Roger O'Neill: To drown in your arms and hide in yer eyes, darlin'.
  4. ›+ 3 more definitions

    1. To inundate, submerge, overwhelm.

      • He drowns his sorrows in buckets of chocolate ice cream.
      • Though most men being in sensuall pleasures drownd, / It seemes their Soules but in the Senses are.
      • 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:

    2. To obscure, particularly amid an overwhelming volume of other items.

      • The answers intelligence services seek are often drowned in the flood of information they can now gather.

    3. A surname.

The neighborhood

  • synonymfloodto cover, as with water
  • synonyminundateto cover, as with water

Derived

a drowning man will clutch at a straw, a drowning man will grab at a straw, a drowning man will grab at straws, a drowning man will grasp at a straw, a drowning man will grasp at straws, 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

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at drown. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01drown02fluid03ease04easily05difficulty06drowning07drowned

A definitional loop anchored at drown. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

7 hops · closes at drown

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA