Douse
name, noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A sudden plunging into water.
"In winter a douse in cold water helps the looks and adds to the style of the carcass, but they should be thoroughly dried before packing."
- 2 A blow or strike, especially to the face.
- 1 To plunge suddenly into water; to duck; to immerse. ambitransitive
"Set fire to your matches! / Douse them in gasoline!"
- 2 To strike, beat, or thrash. transitive
- 3 cover with liquid; pour liquid onto wordnet
- 4 To fall suddenly into water. intransitive
"swing i' th'air, or douse in water"
- 5 To strike or lower in haste; to slacken suddenly transitive
"Douse the topsail!"
Show 7 more definitions
- 6 slacken wordnet
- 7 To put out; to extinguish. transitive
"The man who doused the fire was told to put the remainder of the coal into the bucket and then give the bucket to the soldier."
- 8 lower quickly wordnet
- 9 immerse briefly into a liquid so as to wet, coat, or saturate wordnet
- 10 dip into a liquid wordnet
- 11 wet thoroughly wordnet
- 12 put out, as of a candle or a light wordnet
- 1 A surname.
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"You can douse a grease fire by covering the pan with a lid."
Etymology
Probably of North Germanic origin, related to Swedish dunsa (“to plumb down, fall clumsily”), Danish dunse (“to thump”). Compare Old English dwǣsċan (“to extinguish”) and douse below.
From Middle English duschen, dusshen (“to rush, fall”), related to Norwegian dusa (“to break, cast down from”), Old Dutch doesen (“to beat, strike”), dialectal German tusen, dusen (“to strike, run against, collide”), Saterland Frisian dössen (“to strike”). Compare doss, dust.
Related phrases
More for "douse"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.