drown

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English drounen, also drunen,^[2][3][4][5] at first a northern English and Scottish word.^[6][7][8] Its origin is disputed.^[9][6] Many dictionaries assume an Old English *drūnian that is not recorded:^{[9][6][3][7][10]} the OED calls its origin obscure and finds the usual explanation, a reduction of druncnen or of the Old Norse verb, very unlikely on phonetic grounds.^[9] Barnhart, Etymonline and Merriam-Webster connect it with Middle English druncnen, to drown, from druncnian,^[3][4][5] which meant both "to become drunk" and "to sink, drown".^[11] The Middle English Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary instead take it as probably Scandinavian,^[2][12] like Skeat, who compared Middle Danish and Icelandic forms;^[13] the Middle English Dictionary posits a form such as Old Norse *drunkna.^[2] Old Norse drukkna (“to be drowned”) (written drukna by Barnhart, Hoad and Ayto) is at least related,^{[10][8][6][7][3]} and Etymonline thinks it influenced the modern form through northern dialect.^[4] All these forms go back to the Germanic base of drink, Proto-Germanic *druŋk-, a gradation variant of the base of the verb.^{[6][7][10][5]} The American Heritage Dictionary refers it to Proto-Indo-European *dhreg-.^[12] Related words are drench and drunken.^[4][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

To kill a person or animal by holding it under water, and to flood or submerge: before 1300, in Cursor Mundi, which also has the intransitive sense "to sink and perish", of a ship.^[9] Barnhart dates the word to about 1325, also in Cursor Mundi.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Ayto says that the word began to replace the related drench in the sense "suffocate in water".^[7] It was used of ships as well as of living things: a ship could drown, sink, until about 1523, and then from about 1465 to 1632 one could drown a ship, send it to the bottom.^[9][14][4] The intransitive "to die under water" is recorded before 1325.^[9] Figurative uses follow in the Wycliffite Bible (1388), and then from 1398 the sense "to overwhelm as a flood does", including to drown a sound by a louder one.^[9][4] In law, from 1642 to 1804, a right or estate could be drowned, extinguished by merging in a greater one.^[9] To drown out first meant to drive out by flooding (1845);^[9] Etymonline dates its use of sounds to 1884.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined the verb as "to suffocate in water" and took it from German, after Skinner, or from Old English druncnian, after Lye.^[15] The saying that a drowning man will clutch at a straw is found from the 16th century, with catch instead of clutch until the 20th.^[16]

Timeline

• before 1300 – to kill by submersion; to flood or submerge; of a ship, to sink.^[9]
• before 1325 – to die by submersion.^[9]
• 1388 – figurative use.^[9]
• 1398 – to overwhelm, to overpower a sound.^[9]
• c. 1465 – to sink a ship (obsolete by 1632).^[9]
• 1642 – in law, to extinguish by merging (obsolete by 1804).^[9]
• 1845 – drown out, to drive out by flooding.^[9]
• 1884 – drown out of sounds.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To die from being under water or another liquid: The kitten nearly drowned in the pond.^[17][5][9]
2. To kill a person or animal by holding it under water.^[17][5][9]
3. To soak or cover completely with water; to flood or submerge: Rain drowned the valley.^[17][5][9]
4. To make a sound impossible to hear with a louder one, often with out: The band drowned out the speeches.^[17][5][9]
5. To get rid of a feeling as if by sinking it, especially in drink: She drowned her disappointment in wine.^[17][9]
6. To overwhelm, or be overwhelmed, by a great quantity of something.^[9][5]

Word family

• drowner
• drownproof

Related words

• drink
• drench
• drunken
• drunk

Usage notes

The past form drownded is regarded as substandard,^[5] or archaic and dialectal;^[10] the OED compares the added d with astound, bound and sound.^[9][14] Wright's dialect dictionary records forms such as droon, droond and dround in Scotland, Ireland and England.^[18]

References

1. ^ 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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b c d 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 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
18. ^ 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)