drown
/dɹaʊn/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.68 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To be flooded: to be inundated with or submerged in (literally) water or (figuratively) other things; to be overwhelmed.
Intransitive verb
name
A surname.
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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:"
- "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'."
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: drownen