Word.ws English Dictionary

dreich

/dɹiːk//dɹik/

dreich adjective: extending for a long distance or time, especially when tedious or wearisome; long-drawn-out, protracted; also, of speech or writing: unnecessarily verbose; long-winded.

Adjective

dreich (comparative dreicher, superlative dreichest)

  1. (Midlands, North, Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland) Extending for a long distance or time, especially when tedious or wearisome; long-drawn-out, protracted; also, of speech or writing: unnecessarily verbose; long-winded.
    • So Alec showed her the letter, 'twas long and dreich and went on and on; […]1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon [pseudonym; James Leslie Mitchell], “Epilude: The Unfurrowed Field”, in Ian Campbell, editor, Sunset Song: A Novel (A Scots Quair; 1), Edinburgh: Polygon, Birlinn...
  2. (Midlands, North, Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland) Not enjoyable or interesting; boring, dull.
    • VVhen thou an' I vvere young an' ſkiegh, / An' ſtable-meals at Fairs vvere driegh, / Hovv thou vvad prance, an' ſnore, an' ſkriegh, / An' tak the road!1786, Robert Burns, “The Auld Farmer’s New-year Morning Salutation to His Auld Mare, Maggie, on Giving Her the Accustomed Ripp of Corn to Hansel in the New-year”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish...
    • ["]My life is a bit driegh," says he, pouring out the brandy; "I see little company, and sit and twirl my thumbs, and mind upon a great day that is gone by, and weary for another great day that we all hope will be upon the road. And so here's a toast to ye: The Restoration!"1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Cluny’s Cage”, in Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886...
  3. (Midlands, North, Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland) Bleak, cheerless, dismal, dreary, miserable.
    • But he's lying i' such dree poverty,—and niver a friend to go near him,—niver a person to speak a kind word t' him.1863, [Elizabeth] Gaskell, “Wedding Raiment”, in Sylvia’s Lovers. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, page 278
    • Aweel, Wully was an unco praying kind o' man; a dreigh body, nane o' my kind, I never could abide the sight o' him; […]1889, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Summary of Events (continued)”, in The Master of Ballantrae. […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, […], →OCLC, page 22
  4. (Midlands, North, Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland) suitably serious or solemn
  5. (Midlands, North, Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland) of a person: patient, stoic, tolerant, resolute
  6. (Midlands, North, Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland) Slow, sluggish; specifically, of a person: tending to delay or procrastinate (especially when paying for something).
    • What think ye o' yon bonny hill yonder, lifting its brow to the moon? […] [M]aybe we will win there the night yet, God sain us, though our minny [a horse] here's rather driegh in the upgang.1818 July 25, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter IV, in Tales of My Landlord, Second Series, […] (The Heart of Mid-Lothian), volume III, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and...
    • I have the bills o' men like Keppoch and Glengarry flourishing about the Lowlands in the place o' paper money; they're aye gettin' a' the dreicher at the payin', but whatever comes o't I have got them in my grasp.1914, Neil Munro, “A Call to the North”, in The New Road, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, page 53
  7. (Midlands, North, Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland) Of a person: having a dejected or serious appearance or mood; dour, gloomy, moody, morose, sullen.
    • There they are that were capering on their prancing nags four days since, and they are now ganging as driegh and sober as oursells the day.1819, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter VIII, in Tales of My Landlord, Third Series. […], volume III (The Bride of Lammermoor), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for...
  8. (Midlands, North, Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland) Of a task: laborious, tedious, troublesome; hence, needing concentration to understand; intricate.
    • Right above your head some thing towered up with branching arms in the flow of the lights; and you saw that it was a cross of stone, overlaid with curlecues, strange, dreich signs, like the banners of the Roman robbers of men whom you'd preached against in Zion last night.[1934], Lewis Grassic Gibbon [pseudonym; James Leslie Mitchell], “Forsaken”, in Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Hugh MacDiarmid [pseudonym; Christopher Murray Grieve], Scottish Scene or The Intelligent Man’s...
  9. (Midlands, North, Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland) Chiefly of rain: without pause or stop; continuous, incessant.
    • So, after two hours' running downhill, we came out in the level valley at Glashütte. It was raining now, a thick dree rain.a. 1931 (date written), D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “A Hay Hut among the Mountains”, in Warren Roberts, Harry T. Moore, editors, Phoenix II: Uncollected, Unpublished, and Other Prose Works by D. H....
  10. (Midlands, North, Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland) Of weather: dreary, gloomy (cold, overcast, rainy, etc.).
    • To be sure, t' winter's been a dree season, and thou'rt, maybe, in the right on't to make a late start.1863, [Elizabeth] Gaskell, “The Engagement”, in Sylvia’s Lovers. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, page 40
    • Days are dreicher than January. / A dead lamb is dropped in the thaw. / Yet now we are glad / For all things turn to the sun.1969, George Mackay Brown, “Rackwick”, in An Orkney Tapestry, London: Victor Gollancz, →OCLC, page 40
  11. (Midlands, North, Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, obsolete) Of a person: negotiating forcefully; driving a hard bargain.
  12. (Midlands, North, Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, obsolete) Of a place (especially a hill or mountain): difficult to get through or reach; inaccessible.

Noun

dreich (countable and uncountable, plural dreiches)

  1. (Midlands, North, Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, countable) A tedious or troublesome task; also, the most tedious or troublesome part of a task.
  2. (Midlands, North, Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, uncountable) Bleakness, gloom; specifically, gloomy (cold, overcast, rainy, etc.) weather.

dreich meaning in Bengali

dreich in Bengali

বিষণ্ণ, ঘোলাটে, অবিরাম বৃষ্টিসিক্ত

Examples of dreich in a sentence

  • The dreichest saul could see he had sunlicht in his ee, / And there's no his marrow left in the toun.[1917, John Buchan, “[Theocritus in Scots.] The Kirn (Idyll vii).”, in Poems: Scots and English (in Scots), London; Edinburgh: T. C. & E....
  • It looked a dreich, cold place as you rode by at night, near as lonesome as the old Mill was, and not near as handy.1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon [pseudonym; James Leslie Mitchell], “Epilude: The Unfurrowed Field”, in Ian Campbell, editor, Sunset Song: A...
  • There are many other species of Scottish station, from geranium-hung coastal termini to dreich places in the Black Country, but a concluding note must be reached, and it shall concern Glasgow.1941 January, C[uthbert] Hamilton Ellis, “The Scottish Station”, in The Railway Magazine, London: Tothill Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 3:
  • Angela Randall was not afraid of the dark, but driving home at this dreich hour and at the end of a difficult shift, she found the ectoplasmic fog unnerving.2004 June 3, Susan Hill, chapter 1, in The Various Haunts of Men (A Simon Serrailler Crime Novel), London: Chatto & Windus, →ISBN, page 4:

Synonyms of dreich

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

10 more antonymsFewer antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of dreich

Forms of dreich

Adjective
comparativedreicher
superlativedreichest
alternative formdree
alternative formdreigh
alternative formdreegh
Noun
pluraldreiches

Origin of dreich

The adjective is borrowed from Scots dreich (“hard to bear, dreary, tedious, wearisome; interminable, long-winded; dull, uninteresting; slow, tardy; doleful, gloomy; baffling, difficult; difficult to reach, inaccessible”), from Middle English dregh, dri, drie (“burdensome; depressing, dismal; large, tall; lasting, long; long-suffering, patient; tedious; of blows: hard, heavy; of the face: unchanging, unmoved; of a person: strong, valorous”) [and other forms], from Old English *drēog, drēoh (“earnest; fit; sober”), and then probably partly: * shortened from Old English ġedrēog (“calm, quiet; sober; fit, suitable”, adjective), from ġe- (prefix forming adjectives of association or similarity) + Proto-Germanic *dreugaz (“enduring, lasting”) (from *dreuganą (“to serve, be a retainer”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrewgʰ- (“to serve one’s tribe; loyal”)); and * influenced by Old Norse drjúgr (“sufficient; excessive, very; great; strong”), from Proto-Germanic *dreugaz (see above). The noun is probably partly derived: * from the adjective; and * borrowed from Scots dreich (“dreariness, gloom”) (rare), probably from Middle English dri, drie (“annoyance, trouble; grief; period of time”) [and...

Words formed from dreich

Words that rhyme with dreich

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about dreich

What does dreich mean?
Dreich means extending for a long distance or time, especially when tedious or wearisome; long-drawn-out, protracted; also, of speech or writing: unnecessarily verbose; long-winded.
What is dreich in Bengali?
Dreich in Bengali is বিষণ্ণ, ঘোলাটে, অবিরাম বৃষ্টিসিক্ত. See Dreich meaning in Bengali.
How do you use dreich in a sentence?
The dreichest saul could see he had sunlicht in his ee, / And there's no his marrow left in the toun.
What part of speech is dreich?
Dreich can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce dreich?
Dreich is pronounced /dɹiːk/ (UK).

Words near dreich in the dictionary

  1. Drehers
  2. Drehu
  3. dreibein
  4. dreibeins
  5. Dreibund
  6. dreich
  7. dreicher
  8. dreiches
  9. dreichest
  10. dreidel
  11. dreidels

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dreich (page history and authors); dreich (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Pvanp7-dreich.wav, En-us-dreich.oga.

Cite this entry: “dreich.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dreich. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.