drown
/dɹaʊn/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Northumbria/dɹuːn/
drown verb: to die from suffocation while immersed in water or other fluid.
Verb
drown (third-person singular simple present drowns, present participle drowning, simple past and past participle drowned)
- To die from suffocation while immersed in water or other fluid.
- 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.1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- drench
- To kill by suffocating in water or another liquid.
- 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:1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
- To be flooded: to be inundated with or submerged in (literally) water or (figuratively) other things; to be overwhelmed.
- 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'.1990, House of Cards, season 1, episode 2
- To inundate, submerge, overwhelm.
- He drowns his sorrows in buckets of chocolate ice cream.
- Though most men being in sensuall pleasures drownd, / It seemes their Soules but in the Senses are.1599, John Davies, Nosce Teipsum, London: John Standish, page 19
- To obscure, particularly amid an overwhelming volume of other items.
- The answers intelligence services seek are often drowned in the flood of information they can now gather.
Proper noun capitalized: Drown
Drown (plural Drowns)
- A surname.
drown meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
drown in Hindi
- to be suffocated in fluid
- डूबना ḍūbnā
- to deprive of life by immersion in liquid
- डुबाना ḍubānā
drown in Tamil
- மூழ்கு, அமிழ்
drown in Marathi
- to be suffocated in fluid
- बुडणे buḍṇe
drown in Urdu
- to be suffocated in fluid
- ڈوبنا ḍūbnā, غرق ہونا ġarq honā
- to deprive of life by immersion in liquid
- ڈوبانا ḍubānā, غرق کرنا ġarq karnā
More languagesFewer languages
- drown in Bengali
- মজান mojan
- drown in Telugu
- మునుగు munugu
- drown in Malayalam
- മുങ്ങിച്ചാവുക muṅṅiccāvuka, മുങ്ങിത്താഴുക muṅṅittāḻuka, മുക്കിക്കൊല്ലുക mukkikkolluka, മുക്കിത്താഴ്ത്തുക mukkittāḻttuka
- drown in Kannada
- ಹಾಕುತ್ತದೆ hākuttade
- drown in Punjabi
- ਡੁੱਬ ḍubba
- drown in Gujarati
- ડૂબવું ḍūbvũ
- drown in Odia
- ବୁଡିବା ପାଇଁ, ବୁଡ଼ିବାକୁ
- drown in Assamese
- ডুবা duba
- drown in Nepali
- डुबा ḍubā
- drown in Tagalog
- malunod, lunurin
- drown in Arabic
- غَرِقَ ḡariqa, أَغْرَقَ ʔaḡraqa
- drown in Malay
- lemas
- drown in Indonesian
- menenggelamkan, tenggelam
- drown in Persian
- فرورفتن foruraftan, فروشدن forušodan
- drown in Thai
- จมน้ำตาย jom naam dtaai
- drown in Vietnamese
- dìm, chết đuối, đuối nước, nhấn chìm
- drown in Myanmar
- ရေနစ် renac
Examples of drown in a sentence
- Come, thou monarch of the vine, / Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne! / In thy fats our cares be drown’d, / With thy grapes our hairs be crown’d:c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies...
- My private Voice is drown’d amid the Senate’s.1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act II, scene i, page...
Synonyms of drown
Forms of drown
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | drowns |
| present participle | drowning |
| past participle | drowned |
| past | drowned |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Drowns |
Origin of drown
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.
Words formed from drown
- a drowning man will clutch at a straw
- a drowning man will grab at a straw
- a drowning man will grab at straws
- a drowning man will grasp at a straw
- a drowning man will grasp at straws
- drownable
- drownage
- drowned
- drowned tube
- drownee
- drowner
- drowning
- drown one's sorrows
- drown out
- drownproof
- drown the miller
- overdrown
- surround and drown
- too much water drowned the miller
- undrown
Words that rhyme with drown
19 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about drown
- What does drown mean?
- Drown means to die from suffocation while immersed in water or other fluid.
- What is drown in Hindi?
- Drown in Hindi is डूबना (ḍūbnā), डुबाना (ḍubānā). See Drown meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use drown in a sentence?
- Come, thou monarch of the vine, / Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne! / In thy fats our cares be drown’d, / With thy grapes our hairs be crown’d:
- What part of speech is drown?
- Drown can be a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce drown?
- Drown is pronounced /dɹaʊn/.
- What is the past tense of drown?
- The past tense of drown is drowned.
Words near drown in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: drown (page history and authors); Drown (page history and authors); drown (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ડૂબવું (Gujarati) (page history and authors); drown (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ডুবা (Assamese) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-drown.ogg.
Cite this entry: “drown.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/drown. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.