drowse
/ˈdɹæʊ̯z//ˈdɹaʊ̯z/
drowse verb: to make (someone or something) heavy with drowsiness or sleepiness.
Verb
drowse (third-person singular simple present drowses, present participle drowsing, simple past and past participle drowsed)
- To make (someone or something) heavy with drowsiness or sleepiness.
- Novv vvhen as vvine had drovvned and drouſed the underſtanding: vvhen the night ſeaſon, vvhen the entermingling of men and vvomen together one vvith another (and namely, they of young and tender yeeres, vvith thoſe of elder age) had cleane put out & extinguiſhed all reſpect and regard of ſhamefaſt...1600, T[itus] Livius [i.e., Livy], “[Book XXXIX]”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Romane Historie […], London: […] Adam Islip, →OCLC, pages 1027–1028
- But novv the Fume of his aboundant Drink, / Drouzing his Brain, beginneth to deface / The ſvveet remembrance of her lovely Face: […]1614, [Guillaume de Salluste] Du Bartas, “Bethulia’s Rescue. The Wonder of Widowes: Honour of Wives: Mirrour of Maids. The Sixth Book.”, in Josuah Sylvester, transl., Du Bartas His Deuine Weekes and...
- Followed by away: to pass (time) drowsily or in sleeping; also, to proceed (on a way) drowsily or sleepily.
- [T]he wary tadpole returned from exile, the bullfrog resumed his ancient song, the tranquil turtle sunned his back upon bank and log and drowsed his grateful life away as in the old sweet days of yore.1873, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-day, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, published 1874, →OCLC
- Why plague me who am pledged to home-delights? / I'm the engaged now: through whose fault but yours? / On duty. As you well know. Don't I drowse / The week away down with the Aunt and Niece? / No help: it's leisure, loneliness and love.1875, Robert Browning, “Part I”, in The Inn Album, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC, page 12
- To make (someone or something) dull or inactive, as if from sleepiness.
- Then, father, I will lead your legions forth, / Compact in steeled squares, and speared files, / And bid our trumpets speak a fell rebuke / To nations drows'd in peace!a. 1822 (date written), John Keats, “[Tragedies.] Otho the Great: A Tragedy in Five Acts.”, in [Horace Elisha Scudder], editor, The Complete Poetical Works and Letters of John Keats, Cambridge...
- In a letter, however, to Lady Beaumont [Margaret, wife of Sir George Beaumont, 7th Baronet] of March, 1826, there is a passage which it is interesting to compare with the 'Work without Hope' ("All nature seems at work," &c.) composed just a year later. It is a prose version of those exquisite...1887 November 19, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, quotee, “Literature: Memorials of Coleorton: Being Letters from Coleridge, Wordsworth and His Sister, Southey, and Sir Walter Scott to Sir George and Lady...
- Often followed by away or off: to be drowsy or sleepy; to be half-asleep.
- He vvas […] Seene, but vvith ſuch eie / As ſicke and blunted vvith communitie, / Affoord no extraordinary gaze, / Such as is bent on ſu[n]-like maieſtie, / VVhen it ſhines ſeldome in admiring eies, / But rather drovvzed, and hung their eie-lids dovvn, / Slept in his face, and rendred ſuch aſpect /...c. 1597 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The History of Henrie the Fourth; […], quarto edition, London: […] P[eter] S[hort] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1598, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]...
- [T]hen to my office again, where I could not hold my eyes open for an houre, but I drowsed (so little sensible I apprehend my soul is of necessity of minding business), but anon I wakened and minded my business, and did a great deale with very great pleasure, […]1666 May 26 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “May 17th, 1666”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume V, London...
- To be dull or inactive, as if from sleepiness.
- Ill huſbandry drowſeth at fortune ſo awke, / good huſbandry rowſeth him ſelfe like a hawke.1570, Thomas Tusser, “Comparing Good Husband with Vnthrift His Brother, the Better Descerneth the Tone from the Tother”, in A Hundrethe Good Pointes of Husbandrie, Lately Maried vnto a Hundrethe Good...
- Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove / The Danaïd of a leaky vase, for fear / This whole foundation ruin, and I lose / My honour, these their lives.1847, Alfred Tennyson, “Part II”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 40
Noun
drowse (plural drowses)
- An act, or a state, of being drowsy or sleepy.
- in a drowse
- He saw his mother's face, accepting it / In change for heaven itself, with such a smile / As might have been learnt there,—never moved, / But smiled on, in a drowse of ecstasy, / So happy (half with her and half with heaven) / He could not have the trouble to be stirred, / But smiled and lay there.1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Sixth Book”, in Aurora Leigh, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1857, →OCLC, page 250
- A state of dullness or inactivity, as if from sleepiness.
- Here, in this latest August dawn, / By windows opening on the lawn, / Where shadows yet are sharp with night, / And sunshine seems asleep, though bright; / And, further on, the wealthy wheat / Bends in a golden drowse, how sweet / To sit, and cast my careless looks / Around my walls of well-read...1862, Coventry Patmore, “Felix Vaughan to Honoria Vaughan”, in [The Angel in the House]: The Victories of Love, book IV, Boston, Mass.: T. O. H. P. Burnham, →OCLC, pages 51–52
drowse meaning in Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada
drowse in Tamil
- அரையுறக்கங்கொள், கண்ணயர்
drowse in Malayalam
- nap, doze, catnap
- മയങ്ങുക, ഉറക്കം തൂങ്ങുക, മയങ്ങിക്കിടക്കുക, കണ്ണുരാവുക, കണ്ണടഞ്ഞുപോകുക, മഴലുക
- light sleep, doze, nap
- ലഘുനിദ്ര, ലഘുവായ ഉറക്കം, ശയം, ശായിക, മയർവ്, മയൽ
drowse in Kannada
- ತೂಂಕಡಿಸು, ತೂಕಡಿಸು, ತೂಂಕಡಂಗಾಣ್
Examples of drowse in a sentence
- The warmth drowsed them and replaced contentment.1930, Norman Lindsay, chapter 1, in Every Mother’s Son [Redheap], 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation...
- [William] Congreve held fast to the Greek poets, but otherwise seems to have drowsed his way through Trinity studies.1941, John C[unyus] Hodges, “Trinity College and Smock Alley”, in William Congreve the Man: A Biography from New Sources (General Series...
- Ida had kept him awake while he drowsed his way up the old King's Trace in eastern Missouri, feverish and weak.2002, Marsha Ward, The Man from Shenandoah, Bloomington, Ind.: Writers Club Press, →ISBN, page 55:
- He drowsed his way through the first half hour of the treatment, […]2006, Sarah Mayberry, Cruise Control (Harlequin Blaze; 251), Toronto, Ont.: Harlequin, →ISBN:
Forms of drowse
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | drowses |
| present participle | drowsing |
| past participle | drowsed |
| past | drowsed |
| second-person singular present (archaic) | drowsest |
| second-person singular past (archaic) | drowsedst |
| third-person singular present (archaic) | drowseth |
| Noun | |
| plural | drowses |
Origin of drowse
The verb is either: * a back-formation from drowsy, which is attested earlier; or * possibly from Middle English *drousen (no known attestations), from Old English drūsan, drūsian (“to droop, sink; to become feeble, inactive, low, or slow, drowse”), from Proto-Germanic *drūsijaną (“to look down; mourn”) (possibly merged with *dreusaną (“to fall”)), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrewHs- (“to break off; to fall down”). The noun is derived from the verb. cognates * Danish drøse (“to be negligent; to slow down”) * Dutch drozen (“to doze; muse”) * German trauern (“to mourn, be sad”) * Gothic 𐌳𐍂𐌹𐌿𐍃𐌰𐌽 (driusan, “to fall; to fall down”) * Norwegian døse (“to drowse”) * Old English drēosan (“to fall; to perish; to rush”) (whence Middle English dresen (“to fall down”)) * Swedish drösa (“to be slow”)
Words formed from drowse
Words that rhyme with drowse
Questions about drowse
- What does drowse mean?
- Drowse means to make (someone or something) heavy with drowsiness or sleepiness.
- What is drowse in Tamil?
- Drowse in Tamil is அரையுறக்கங்கொள், கண்ணயர். See Drowse meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use drowse in a sentence?
- The warmth drowsed them and replaced contentment.
- What part of speech is drowse?
- Drowse can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce drowse?
- Drowse is pronounced /ˈdɹaʊ̯z/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of drowse?
- The past tense of drowse is drowsed.
Words near drowse in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: drowse (page history and authors); drowse (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); drowse (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); drowse (Kannada 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)-Vealhurl-drowse.wav.
Cite this entry: “drowse.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/drowse. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.