drought
/dɹaʊt/
drought noun: a period of unusually low rainfall, longer and more severe than a dry spell.
Noun
drought (countable and uncountable, plural droughts)
- A period of unusually low rainfall, longer and more severe than a dry spell.
- His village had faced a drought twice.
- The weather looked like drought―a thoroughly wicked drought; if the rain did not come before long, their crops would be burnt up.1917, Knut Hamsun, Growth of the Soil, Book 1, Ch.4, at p.33
- A longer than expected term without success, particularly in sport.
- Sri Lanka ended their ten-game drought with a consolation win over Bangladesh.
- Kane had been going through something of a drought by his own standards. His previous England goal came 500 days ago, in a Euro 2020 qualifier against Kosovo, and his header in Tirana ended a run of 496 minutes without scoring.2021 March 28, Phil McNulty, “Albania 0-2 England”, in BBC Sport
- Synonyms:
- losing streak
- Antonyms:
- winning streak
- dryness, aridness, dry heat
- Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from mine eyes.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 31:40
- The consequences are, that a few days of severe drought, in the early parts of summer, or even when the grain is ripening, is sometimes fatal to the crop on moss.1814, The Right Honorable Sir John Sinclair, chapter XI, in Appendix to the General Report of the Agricultural State, and Political Circumstances, of Scotland, page 16
Proper noun capitalized: Drought
Drought (plural Droughts)
- A surname.
drought meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
drought in Hindi
- period of unusually low rain fall
- सूखा sūkhā, अनावृष्टि anāvŕṣṭi, खुश्की khuśkī, अकाल akāl, अवर्षण avarṣaṇ
drought in Tamil
- period of unusually low rain fall
- வறட்சி vaṟaṭci
drought in Marathi
- period of unusually low rain fall
- दुष्काळ duṣkāḷ
drought in Urdu
- period of unusually low rain fall
- سُوکھا sūkhā, خُشْک سالی xuśk sālī, خُشْکی xuśkī
More languagesFewer languages
- drought in Bengali
- খরা khora
- drought in Telugu
- అనావృష్టి anāvr̥ṣṭi
- drought in Malayalam
- വരൾച്ച varaḷcca
- drought in Kannada
- ಬರ bara
- drought in Punjabi
- ਸੋਕਾ sokā, ਖੁਸ਼ਕ ਸਾਲੀ khuśak sālī
- drought in Gujarati
- દુકાળ dukāḷ
- drought in Odia
- ମରୁଡ଼ି
- drought in Sanskrit
- अवृष्टि avṛṣṭi, अनावृष्टि anāvṛṣṭi, दुर्वृष्टि durvṛṣṭi
- drought in Sinhala
- නියඟය niyaⁿgaya
- drought in Assamese
- খৰালি khorali
- drought in Pashto
- وچکالي wəčkālí
- drought in Tagalog
- bisi, baisi, tagtuyot
- drought in Arabic
- جَفَاف jafāf
- drought in Malay
- kemarau
- drought in Indonesian
- kekeringan
- drought in Thai
- ภัยแล้ง pai-lɛ́ɛng, น้ำแล้ง náam-lɛ́ɛng, แล้ง lɛ́ɛng
- drought in Vietnamese
- hạn hán
- drought in Myanmar
- မိုးခေါင်ခြင်း mui:hkaunghkrang:, ရေငတ်ခြင်း re-ngathkrang:
Examples of drought in a sentence
- Phoenix and Lubbock are both caught in severe drought, and it is going to get much worse.2012 January, Donald Worster, “A Drier and Hotter Future”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 26...
- The seasons most unfavourable to the crop are those of excessive drought or excessive rain.1817, Adam Smith, chapter V, in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, volume 2, page 344:
Synonyms of drought
Antonyms
Forms of drought
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | droughts |
| alternative form | drouth |
| alternative Northern England | druft |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Droughts |
Origin of drought
From Middle English droughte, droghte, drouȝte, from Old English drūgaþ. Cognate with Dutch droogte, Low German Dröögde. By surface analysis, dry + -t (abstract nominal suffix).
Words formed from drought
Words that rhyme with drought
42 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- set about
- shout
- sprout
- doubt
- umlaut
- fill out
- grout
- pout
- devout
- gout
- nowt
- redoubt
- throughout
- without
- ablaut
- dout
- flout
- lout
- mahout
- misdoubt
- mought
- prone out
- strout
- term out
- trout
- zoom out
- 'bout
- anlaut
- aspout
- asprout
- bluff out
- chout
- dought
- knout
- kraut
- layabout
- ne'er cast a clout till May be out
- owt
- peter out
- regrout
- sout
- when in doubt, do nowt
Questions about drought
- What does drought mean?
- Drought means a period of unusually low rainfall, longer and more severe than a dry spell.
- What is drought in Hindi?
- Drought in Hindi is सूखा (sūkhā), अनावृष्टि (anāvŕṣṭi), खुश्की (khuśkī). See Drought meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use drought in a sentence?
- Phoenix and Lubbock are both caught in severe drought, and it is going to get much worse.
- What part of speech is drought?
- Drought can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce drought?
- Drought is pronounced /dɹaʊt/.
- What is the plural of drought?
- The plural of drought is droughts.
Words near drought in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: drought (page history and authors); Drought (page history and authors); drought (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-drought.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-drought.wav.
Cite this entry: “drought.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/drought. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.