drought

American  

[drout] / draʊt /

Also drouth

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, want, lack, scarcity

3. Archaic. thirst.

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drought British  

/ draʊt /

noun

1. a prolonged period of scanty rainfall

2. a prolonged shortage

3. Archaic and Scot form: drouth.  an archaic or dialect word for thirst

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drought Scientific  

/ drout /

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

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Pronunciation

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 and 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 is common everywhere in educated speech, and is the usual printed form.

Usage

What does drought mean? A drought is a long period with no rain or unusually low levels of rain or other precipitation.Because weather and climate are different in different places throughout the world, there is no single definition of what counts as a drought. However, it always refers to a significant period of dry weather. Droughts have many harmful effects, including water shortages, crop failure, and in some cases famine, among other things. The word is often used in the phrase drought conditions, referring to very dry conditions resulting from a lack of rainfall.Drought can also be used in a figurative way to refer to an extended shortage of or long period without something, as in The city has the longest championship drought in all of sports. Example: The drought continued for more than three weeks and wildfires started to appear.

Other Word Forms

• droughty adjective

Etymology

Origin of drought

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

Example Sentences

Though California isn’t in a drought, dry conditions have spread in parts of the state.

From Los Angeles Times

He added: "Extreme weather events are becoming more common across Scotland, and we know that communities in the Cairngorms have felt this acutely in recent years, with floods, drought and wildfires."

From BBC

Behind the jump: Extreme weather, including droughts in Brazil and Vietnam, had hit coffee crops.

From The Wall Street Journal

Faith Parum, an economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation, said the rise in fertilizer and diesel prices follows last year’s tariff-related trade disruption and several years of natural disasters, including droughts and freezes.

From Los Angeles Times

At a time major league owners would like you to believe market size equals destiny, the team with baseball’s longest postseason drought plays in the second-largest market in North America.

From Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• lack
• scarcity