Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To kill by submerging and suffocating in water or another liquid.
- intransitive verb To drench thoroughly or cover with or as if with a liquid.
- intransitive verb To deaden one's awareness of; blot out.
- intransitive verb To muffle or mask (a sound) by a louder sound.
- intransitive verb To die by suffocating in water or another liquid.
- idiom (drown (one's) sorrow/sorrows) To try to forget one's troubles by drinking alcohol.
from The Century Dictionary.
- In physical geography, to submerge beneath the waters of a lake or ocean: said of a valley that is thus converted into a bay by a relative change of land- and water-level. See
drowned stream . - In tobacco culture, to injure by long-continued rain followed by warm sunshine. The tobacco soon wilts under these conditions. Also called
scald . - To be suffocated by immersion in water or other liquid.
- To suffocate by immersion in water or other liquid; hence, to destroy, extinguish, or ruin by or as if by submersion.
- To overflow; inundate: as, to
drown land. - Figuratively, to plunge deeply; submerge; overwhelm: as, to
drown remorse in sensual pleasure.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb To be suffocated in water or other fluid; to perish in water.
- transitive verb To overwhelm in water; to submerge; to inundate.
- transitive verb To deprive of life by immersion in water or other liquid.
- transitive verb To overpower; to overcome; to extinguish; -- said especially of sound.
- transitive verb [Obs.] to swallow up.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb intransitive To be
suffocated in water or other fluid; toperish by such suffocation. - verb transitive To deprive of life by
immersion in water or other liquid. - verb transitive To
overwhelm in water; tosubmerge ; toinundate . - verb transitive To
overpower ; toovercome ; toextinguish ; — said especially of sound; usually in the form "to drown out" - verb transitive To
lose , make hard to find or unnoticeable in an abundant mass
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb kill by submerging in water
- verb cover completely or make imperceptible
- verb die from being submerged in water, getting water into the lungs, and asphyxiating
- verb be covered with or submerged in a liquid
- verb get rid of as if by submerging
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Damon said he was especially nervous when he was doing a scene in the water, because “to drown is a very human fear.”
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The story that a turkey which looks up during a rainstorm will drown is likely apocryphal, but certainly they seem stupid enough to not look down when they feel their lungs filling up.
Talking Turkey Ulysses 2009
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The story that a turkey which looks up during a rainstorm will drown is likely apocryphal, but certainly they seem stupid enough to not look down when they feel their lungs filling up.
Archive 2009-10-01 Ulysses 2009
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Whoever does not drown is the witch, and we have all sorts of good logs here in Minnesota we can dry out for that eventuality. markgritter noted that this would leave Gov.
Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway markgritter 2009
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The only difference between his stonewalling of Lebanon and the way he let New Orleans drown is that he has put away the banjo this summer, at least in public view.
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The only difference between his stonewalling of Lebanon and the way he let New Orleans drown is that he has put away the banjo this summer, at least in public view.
Archive 2006-08-01 JDsg 2006
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I was too busy surfing that I've almost drown aka addicted la.
Hijack Queen 2008
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President Obama should withdraw the bulk of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by mid-2013, then "drown" the costs of that withdrawal with a flurry of diplomacy, writes Leslie Gelb of the Daily Beast.
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OpEdNews - Quicklink: US soldiers 'drown' in Afghanistan
OpEdNews - Quicklink: US soldiers 'drown' in Afghanistan 2009
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If matters continue on their present course, other religions may not "drown," as Belgorod's Catholics worry.
War Of The Faiths 2007
bilby commented on the word drown
"Following on from the cosmetically customized version of the Tesla Roadster which debuted at the Essen Motor Show 2008, German tuning house BRABUS has seen the writing on the wall and launched a second electric car, this time based on a Smart fortwo. Drowned in matt green throughout the exterior and interior, the car comes with the same style monoblock light-alloy wheels and the (somewhat gimmicky) LED Daytime running lights as used on the Tesla."
- Paul Evans, Smart fortwo BRABUS electric drive, gizmag.com, 4 March 2009.
March 5, 2009