drench

Etymology

The verb is inherited from Middle English drenchen,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English drencan (“to give to drink, make drunk; to drown”),^[5][6][2] the causative of drincan (“to drink”), the source of drink.^[6][7][8][9] It goes back to Proto-Germanic *drankijaną,^[1][7] and is cognate with Old Saxon drenkian, Dutch drenken, Old High German trenchen, German tränken, Old Norse drekkja, Swedish dränka and Gothic 𐌳𐍂𐌰𐌲𐌺𐌾𐌰𐌽 (dragkjan, “to give to drink”).^[8][6][10] The noun is inherited from Middle English drench,^[11] inherited from Old English drenc (“a drink, potion”),^[8][11][10] from Proto-Germanic *drankiz,^[1][10][8] and is related to Old Saxon dranc, German Trank and Gothic 𐌳𐍂𐌰𐌲𐌺 (dragk).^[8][12][10] The American Heritage Dictionary refers the family to Proto-Indo-European *dhreg-.^[4] Etymonline compares the causative pairs stink and stench, cling and clench.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

To give drink to, or to make drunk: Old English, with Bosworth-Toller quoting the Psalms;^[5][8] Barnhart dates the Old English verb about 1000.^[7] The noun, a drink or draught, is also recorded in Old English, in the Corpus Glossary.^[8]

Semantic evolution

As Trench put it, to drench is to make to drink, as to fell is to make to fall.^[13] The verb could already mean to drown in Old English,^[5][6] and in Middle English this was a leading sense,^[2][14] found for instance in Havelok the Dane: "He is drenched in the flod".^[13] In Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale the Hebrew people are kept from their "drenching" in the sea.^[13] Barnhart's record of the drowning sense is in Layamon, probably before 1200,^[7] after a use for poisoning with a drink, probably about 1175;^[7] the OED's record is from about 1200, and it has the sense die out in 1640, succeeded by the related drown.^[8][14] The verb also came to mean to soak by immersion, about 1200 in Barnhart and about 1230 in the OED,^[7][8] then in the middle of the 16th century to wet with falling or thrown liquid, now the usual sense.^[8][6] A figurative use, to plunge or overwhelm, runs from Chaucer's Boece to 1817,^[8] and today something can be drenched in light.^[12] The original "make to drink" survives in veterinary use.^[14][10][15] The noun followed a similar path: a medicinal or poisonous draught from Old English,^[8] a dose for an animal from 1552,^[8] and a soaking only from 1807.^[8] In tanning, both noun and verb have referred to steeping skins since 1853.^[8] English dialects kept a drench of cold for a catarrh in Gloucestershire, and the verb for making drunk in Surrey and for draining a drink in West Yorkshire.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1000 – to give to drink, to make drunk.^[7][8][5]
• c. 1175 – to poison with a drink.^[7]
• before 1200 – to submerge in water, to drown (obsolete by 1640).^[7] The OED's first record is c. 1200.^[8]
• c. 1200 – to soak, to saturate by immersion.^[7] The OED's first record is c. 1230.^[8]
• 1297 – intransitive, to sink in water or be drowned (obsolete by 1570).^[8]
• c. 1374 – figuratively, to overwhelm or plunge (obsolete by 1817).^[8]
• 1549–62 – to wet through with falling or thrown liquid.^[8][6]
• 1552 – noun, a dose of medicine for an animal.^[8][10]
• 1807 – noun, the act of drenching; a quantity that drenches.^[8]
• 1853 – in tanning, a preparation for steeping skins, and the steeping itself.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make completely wet; to soak: The sudden storm drenched the hikers.^[17][3][8]
2. To steep or saturate by putting into a liquid: pears drenched in rum.^[3][12][8]
3. To cover or fill thoroughly, as with light: a garden drenched in morning sun.^[12]
4. To give a dose of medicine to an animal, usually by force.^[17][3][8]
5. In tanning, to soak hides in a weak acid bath.^[3][8]
6. (archaic) To force a person to drink.^[3][12]
7. (obsolete, c. 1200–1640) To drown or submerge in water.^[8][3][12]

Noun

1. An act of drenching; a soaking, or a downpour.^[17][12][8]
2. A quantity large enough to drench something.^[3][8]
3. A dose of liquid medicine given to an animal.^[17][3][8]
4. A preparation in which skins are steeped in tanning.^[8][3]
5. (archaic) A medicinal or poisonous draught; a potion.^[12][3]
6. (obsolete, Old English–1340) A drink; a draught.^[8][12]

Word family

• drencher
• drenchingly
• sun-drenched

Related words

• drink
• drown

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
6. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d e f Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
14. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
15. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
17. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins