drought
noun
Simple meaning
A period of unusually low rainfall, longer and more severe than a dry spell.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
drowtIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdɹaʊt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A period of unusually low rainfall, longer and more severe than a dry spell.
by extensioninformal
A longer than expected term without success, particularly in sport.
A shortage of rainfall
“Farmers most affected by the drought hope that there may yet be sufficient rain early in the growing season.”
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- General and technical use
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A period of unusually low rainfall, longer and more severe than a dry spell.
Used this way, drought is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use drought
- “Farmers most affected by the drought hope that there may yet be sufficient rain early in the growing season.”noun
- “When England defeated Pakistan it ended a ten-year drought.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- dryverb
- irrigationnoun
- precipitationnoun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.