drizzle

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain.^[2][3][4][5] The OED, Etymonline, Hoad and Weekley take it as possibly a diminutive and frequentative of the rare verb from Middle English drēsen (“to fall”),^{[2][3][6][7][8][9]} from Old English drēosan (“to fall, perish”),^{[2][3][10][11][12]} with the suffix -le.^[2][10][6] Barnhart, Merriam-Webster and the American Heritage Dictionary suggest instead an alteration of drisning (“a fall of dew”),^{[13][14][4][12]} from gedrysnian (“to pass away, vanish”),^[4][12][15] itself related to drēosan;^[13][14][12] the 16th-century form dryseling may stand between them.^[2][13][5] The Old English verb is cognate with Old Saxon driosan and Gothic 𐌳𐍂𐌹𐌿𐍃𐌰𐌽 (driusan, “to fall”),^{[16][15][10][5]} and the American Heritage Dictionary refers it to the Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *dʰreu-.^[4] Ayto and the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins connect it with dreary, which goes back to a West Germanic base meaning "dripping, falling".^[17][18]

Earliest recorded meaning

To shed in fine drops: 1543, as dryseling.^[2][13][3] The intransitive sense, to rain in fine drops, follows in 1566, in Drant's translation of Horace.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The word was first a transitive verb, to let fall in fine drops, a use the OED marks obsolete after 1638^[2] but which Johnson (1755) still defined as "to shed in small slow drops", quoting Shakespeare's "the air doth drizzle dew".^[19][14] The weather sense, to rain in fine drops, has been the main one since the 1560s.^[2][3] The noun, fine rain, is dated to 1554 by Barnhart and Merriam-Webster, to the 1550s by Etymonline and to before 1612 by the OED;^{[13][14][3][2]} from the 18th century it could also be a thin trickle of anything.^[10][14] In the 19th century the verb came to mean sprinkling or wetting something with fine drops (1810, in Scott),^[2][10] and, as a trade term, picking the gold thread out of old tassels and embroidery (1884).^[2][10] The cookery sense, to trickle a liquid over food, is recorded from 1958,^[2] and the matching noun, a thin stream of a liquid poured over a dish, is in modern dictionaries.^[20] In Scots and some English dialects drizzle also meant to drip or dribble, to drift along slowly, and the scanty water of a small stream;^[21] in slang it has meant tears (Irish, about 1790) and empty chatter (American, 1928).^[22]

Timeline

• 1543 – to shed in fine drops (obsolete by 1638), as dryseling.^[2][13]
• 1554 – noun, fine rain.^[13][14] The OED's first record of the noun is from before 1612.^[2]
• 1566 – to rain in very fine drops.^[2] Merriam-Webster dates this sense to 1584.^[14]
• 1810 – to sprinkle or wet with fine drops.^[2]
• 1884 – to pick the gold thread out of tassels and embroidery.^[2]
• 1958 – cookery, to trickle a liquid over food.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To rain lightly in very fine drops: It drizzled all through the parade.^{[14][16][2][20]}
2. (cookery) To pour a liquid in a thin stream over food: Drizzle the honey over the yogurt.^[2][20][10]
3. To wet or sprinkle something with tiny drops.^[16][2][10]
4. To shed or let fall in tiny drops.^[14][10]

Noun

1. Light rain falling in very fine drops; in meteorology, rain of droplets less than 0.5 mm across.^[16][14][20]
2. A slow trickle or thin stream of a liquid, especially one poured over food.^[14][10][20]

Word family

• drizzly
• drizzlingly

Related words

• dreary
• drear
• drowsy

Usage notes

A separate dialect noun drizzle, a name for the young ling, recorded from 1769, is perhaps short for ling drizzle, a variant of ling grissle.^[2][21]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
8. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
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 g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
12. ^ a b c d 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)
13. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
16. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
17. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
18. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
19. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
20. ^ a b c d e Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
21. ^ a b 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)
22. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com