drought

[ drout ]

noun

1. a period of dry weather, especially a long one that is injurious to crops.
2. an extended shortage:

   a drought of good writing.

   Synonyms: famine, paucity, dearth, lack, scarcity, want

3. Archaic. thirst.

drought

/ draʊt /

noun

1. a prolonged period of scanty rainfall
2. a prolonged shortage
3. an archaic or dialect word for thirst Archaic and Scot formdrouth

drought

/ drout /

1. A long period of abnormally low rainfall, lasting up to several years.

Pronunciation Note

Drought and drouth, nouns derived from the adjective dry plus a suffix, are spellings that represent two phonetic developments of the same Old English word, and are pronounced [drout] and [drouth] respectively. The latter pronunciation, therefore, is not a mispronunciation of drought. The now unproductive suffix -th1 and its alternate form -t were formerly used to derive nouns from adjectives or verbs, resulting in such pairs as drouth — drought from dry and highth—height (the former now obsolete) from high. In American English, drought with the pronunciation [drout] is common everywhere in educated speech, and is the usual printed form.

Derived Forms

• ˈdroughty, adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of drought¹

First recorded before 1000; Middle English; Old English drūgath, equivalent to drūg- (base of drȳge “dry”) + -ath noun suffix; cognate with Dutch droogte “dryness”; dry, -th ¹

Word History and Origins

Origin of drought¹

Old English drūgoth; related to Dutch droogte; see dry

Example Sentences

Worldwide, the number of displaced people has been climbing alongside what appears to be the rising severity of disasters, and research suggests that by later this century as much as one-third of civilization — billions of people — could be facing the kind of heat and drought that had prohibited most human settlement for thousands of years.

From Salon

Some were struggling under the concussions of wildfires and drought.

From Salon

New research shows global warming has become the dominant driver of worsening drought in the western United States.

From Los Angeles Times

California farmers are allocating more land to grow pistachios, which are proving to be a lucrative crop that can withstand the state’s drought conditions, the Associated Press reported Sunday.

From Salon

As explained by the AP, pistachio orchards “can be sustained with minimal water during drought” and their trees “rely on wind instead of bees for pollination and can produce nuts for decades longer.”

From Salon

Related Words

• lack
• scarcity