Library / English Dictionary

DROWN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Die from being submerged in water, getting water into the lungs, and asphyxiating

Example:

The child drowned in the lake

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "drown" is one way to...):

buy the farm; cash in one's chips; choke; conk; croak; decease; die; drop dead; exit; expire; give-up the ghost; go; kick the bucket; pass; pass away; perish; pop off; snuff it (pass from physical life and lose all bodily attributes and functions necessary to sustain life)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Sense 2

Meaning:

Get rid of as if by submerging

Example:

She drowned her trouble in alcohol

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "drown" is one way to...):

do away with; eliminate; extinguish; get rid of (terminate, end, or take out)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s something PP

Sense 3

Meaning:

Kill by submerging in water

Example:

He drowned the kittens

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "drown" is one way to...):

kill (cause to die; put to death, usually intentionally or knowingly)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence example:

They want to drown the prisoners

Sense 4

Meaning:

Cover completely or make imperceptible

Example:

The noise drowned out her speech

Synonyms:

drown; overwhelm; submerge

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "drown" is one way to...):

cover; spread over (form a cover over)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Also:

drown out (make imperceptible)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Be in danger of dying from submersion in a liquid and asphyxiation

Example:

the divers saved the drowning child

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "drown" is one way to...):

submerge; submerse (sink below the surface; go under or as if under water)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s

Sense 6

Meaning:

Be covered with or submerged in a liquid

Example:

the meat was swimming in a fatty gravy

Synonyms:

drown; swim

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Hypernyms (to "drown" is one way to...):

be (have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun))

Sentence frame:

Something is ----ing PP

Credits

 Context examples: 

Enough love might have been wrung out of me, metaphorically speaking, to drown anybody in; and yet there would have remained enough within me, and all over me, to pervade my entire existence.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Did you take any cold that night you half drowned me?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I implored the colonel to let me out, but the remorseless clanking of the levers drowned my cries.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The hubbub of the betting had risen until it drowned all other sounds, men shouting their opinions from one side of the coach-house to the other, and waving their hands to attract attention, or as a sign that they had accepted a wager.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Beth, if you don't keep these horrid cats down cellar I'll have them drowned, exclaimed Meg angrily as she tried to get rid of the kitten which had scrambled up her back and stuck like a burr just out of reach.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Everyone else drowns.

(‘Trickster god’ used fake news in Babylonian Noah story, University of Cambridge)

A thousand alarming presentiments of evil to her beloved Catherine from this terrific separation must oppress her heart with sadness, and drown her in tears for the last day or two of their being together; and advice of the most important and applicable nature must of course flow from her wise lips in their parting conference in her closet.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Mrs. Price, Rebecca, and Betsey all went up to defend themselves, all talking together, but Rebecca loudest, and the job was to be done as well as it could in a great hurry; William trying in vain to send Betsey down again, or keep her from being troublesome where she was; the whole of which, as almost every door in the house was open, could be plainly distinguished in the parlour, except when drowned at intervals by the superior noise of Sam, Tom, and Charles chasing each other up and down stairs, and tumbling about and hallooing.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Their first supposition was that it was the corpse of some person who had been drowned and was thrown on shore by the waves, but on examination they found that the clothes were not wet and even that the body was not then cold.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Time spent looking for a new place to surface after each dive would not only be inefficient given the energy required to swim and hunt, but failure to locate a hole in the ice means the animal would drown.

(Antarctic seals may use Earth's magnetic field to navigate while hunting, NSF)