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drowse

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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WOTD – 13 July 2025
The sermon is drowsing (verb sense 1.1) some members of a church congregation; they are drowsing (verb sense 2.1) because of it.

Etymology

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The verb is either:[1][2]

The noun is derived from the verb.[4]

cognates

Pronunciation

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Verb

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drowse (third-person singular simple present drowses, present participle drowsing, simple past and past participle drowsed)

  1. (transitive)
    2. To make (someone or something) heavy with drowsiness or sleepiness.
      • 1600, T[itus] Livius [i.e., Livy], “[Book XXXIX]”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Romane Historie […], London: […] Adam Islip, →OCLC, pages 1027–1028:
        Novv vvhen as vvine had drovvned and drouſed the underſtanding: vvhen the night ſeaſon, vvhen the entermingling of men and vvomen together one vvith another (and namely, they of young and tender yeeres, vvith thoſe of elder age) had cleane put out & extinguiſhed all reſpect and regard of ſhamefaſt honeſtie: there began firſt to be practiſed all ſorts of corruption, for every one had all pleaſures readie at commaundement, and his choiſe of thoſe vvhereto by nature he vvas more prone and given to luſt after.
      • 1614, [Guillaume de Salluste] Du Bartas, “Bethulia’s Rescue. The Wonder of Widowes: Honour of Wives: Mirrour of Maids. The Sixth Book.”, in Josuah Sylvester, transl., Du Bartas His Deuine Weekes and Workes […], London: […] Robert Young, published 1633, →OCLC, page 507, column 1:
        But novv the Fume of his aboundant Drink, / Drouzing his Brain, beginneth to deface / The ſvveet remembrance of her lovely Face: […]
      • 1930, Norman Lindsay, chapter 1, in Every Mother’s Son [Redheap], 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, →OCLC, section II, page 23:
        A few people were there, loitering away Sunday in their best clothes. The warmth drowsed them and replaced contentment.
    3. Followed by away: to pass (time) drowsily or in sleeping; also, to proceed (on a way) drowsily or sleepily.
      • 1873, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-day, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, published 1874, →OCLC:
        [T]he wary tadpole returned from exile, the bullfrog resumed his ancient song, the tranquil turtle sunned his back upon bank and log and drowsed his grateful life away as in the old sweet days of yore.
      • 1875, Robert Browning, “Part I”, in The Inn Album, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC, page 12:
        Why plague me who am pledged to home-delights? / I'm the engaged now: through whose fault but yours? / On duty. As you well know. Don't I drowse / The week away down with the Aunt and Niece? / No help: it's leisure, loneliness and love.
      • 1941, John C[unyus] Hodges, “Trinity College and Smock Alley”, in William Congreve the Man: A Biography from New Sources (General Series; XI), New York, N.Y.: Modern Language Association of America; Kraus Reprint Corporation, published 1966, →OCLC, page 25:
        [William] Congreve held fast to the Greek poets, but otherwise seems to have drowsed his way through Trinity studies.
      • 1983, Lawrence Durrell, “The Return Journey”, in Sebastian: Or Ruling Passions […] ([The Avignon Quintet; 4]), London; Boston, Mass.: Faber and Faber, →ISBN, page 155:
        They slept again, then woke, and drowsed their way slowly towards the late afternoon when the unexpected fever awoke in him—an onslaught so sudden that the symptoms for her seemed instantly recognisable as a rogue attack of malaria.
      • 2002, Marsha Ward, The Man from Shenandoah, Bloomington, Ind.: Writers Club Press, →ISBN, page 55:
        Ida had kept him awake while he drowsed his way up the old King's Trace in eastern Missouri, feverish and weak.
      • 2006, Sarah Mayberry, Cruise Control (Harlequin Blaze; 251), Toronto, Ont.: Harlequin, →ISBN:
        They were led into a large, attractive room with twin massage beds, and welcomed by their masseurs—in Balinese tradition, he had a male masseur, Anna a female. He drowsed his way through the first half hour of the treatment, […]
    4. (figurative) To make (someone or something) dull or inactive, as if from sleepiness.
  2. (intransitive)
    2. Often followed by away or off: to be drowsy or sleepy; to be half-asleep.
    3. (figurative) To be dull or inactive, as if from sleepiness.
      • 1570, Thomas Tusser, “Comparing Good Husband with Vnthrift His Brother, the Better Descerneth the Tone from the Tother”, in A Hundrethe Good Pointes of Husbandrie, Lately Maried vnto a Hundrethe Good Points of Huswifry Newly Corrected and Amplified […], revised edition, London: […] [Henry Denham? for] Rychard Tottyl, published 1571, →OCLC, stanza 13, folio 22, verso:
        Ill huſbandry drowſeth at fortune ſo awke, / good huſbandry rowſeth him ſelfe like a hawke.
      • 1847, Alfred Tennyson, “Part II”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 40:
        Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove / The Danaïd of a leaky vase, for fear / This whole foundation ruin, and I lose / My honour, these their lives.
      • 1863, Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Leamington Spa”, in Our Old Home: A Series of English Sketches, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 54:
        The Leam [a river in England]—the "high complectioned Leam," as [Michael] Drayton calls it—after drowsing across the principal street of the town [Leamington Spa] beneath a handsome bridge, skirts along the margin of the Garden without any perceptible flow.
      • 1902 July 21, Jack London, “Moon-face”, in Moon-face and Other Stories, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published September 1906, →OCLC, page 5:
        Under the aching noon-day glare, when the green things drooped and the birds withdrew to the depths of the forest, and all nature drowsed, his great "Ha! ha!" and "Ho! ho!" rose up to the sky and challenged the sun.
      • 1921 May (date written), Thomas Hardy, “Meditations on a Holiday (a New Theme to an Old Folk-jingle)”, in Late Lyrics and Earlier with Many Other Verses, London: Macmillan and Co., […], published 1922, →OCLC, stanza 11, page 110:
        What!—our hoar old houses, / Where the past dead-drowses, / Nor a child or spouse is / Of our name at all?
      • 1973 July, Melville Bell Grosvenor, “Homeward with Ulysses”, in Melville Bell Grosvenor, editor, National Geographic, volume 144, number 1, Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 29, column 2:
        Now summer was nearing its end as White Mist motored up Corfu's east coast. In August the cicadas chorused, and the dusty olive trees drowsed in the sun.

Conjugation

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Conjugation of drowse
infinitive (to) drowse
present tense past tense
1st-person singular drowse drowsed
2nd-person singular drowse, drowsest† drowsed, drowsedst†
3rd-person singular drowses, drowseth† drowsed
plural drowse
subjunctive drowse drowsed
imperative drowse —
participles drowsing drowsed

† Archaic or obsolete.

Derived terms

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Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Noun

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drowse (plural drowses)

  1. An act, or a state, of being drowsy or sleepy.
    in a drowse
  2. (figurative) A state of dullness or inactivity, as if from sleepiness.
    • 1862, Coventry Patmore, “Felix Vaughan to Honoria Vaughan”, in [The Angel in the House]: The Victories of Love, book IV, Boston, Mass.: T. O. H. P. Burnham, →OCLC, pages 51–52:
      Here, in this latest August dawn, / By windows opening on the lawn, / Where shadows yet are sharp with night, / And sunshine seems asleep, though bright; / And, further on, the wealthy wheat / Bends in a golden drowse, how sweet / To sit, and cast my careless looks / Around my walls of well-read books, […]

Translations

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References

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  1. ^ “drowse, v.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2025.
  2. ^ “drowse, v.”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
  3. ^ Joseph Bosworth (1882), “drúsan, drúsian”, in T[homas] Northcote Toller, editor, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 215, column 2.
  4. ^ “drowse, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2023.

Further reading

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Anagrams

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