Drought

/[dɹʌʊt]/ name, noun, slang

name, noun, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A period of unusually low rainfall, longer and more severe than a dry spell. countable, uncountable

    "His village had faced a drought twice."

  2. 2
    a shortage of rainfall wordnet
  3. 3
    A longer than expected term without success, particularly in sport. broadly, countable, informal, uncountable

    "Sri Lanka ended their ten-game drought with a consolation win over Bangladesh."

  4. 4
    a prolonged shortage wordnet
  5. 5
    dryness, aridness, dry heat archaic, countable, uncountable

    "Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from mine eyes."

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname.

Synonyms

All synonyms
absenceappetitearidityaridnessbeggarycanine appetite

Example

More examples

"The long drought was followed by famine."

Etymology

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).

Related phrases

Worster-Droughtabsolute droughtdrought-tolerantflash droughtclimate changedry seasondry spellel niño

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.