Other forms: doused, dousing, douses
To douse is to put a fire out with water. Douse the flames, doused in water, douse the fire.
It implies throwing or pouring a large quantity rather than a careful application, which is why it suits fires and rarely anything else. It also means to drench something: doused in petrol, doused with rain. Note the spelling variant dowse, which is standard for the water-divining sense and sometimes used here too — the two words have been swapping spellings for centuries.
1verbdouseTo put a fire out with water.
“The campers doused the fire with buckets of water before going to bed.”
2verbdrenchTo drench something in liquid.
“The firefighters doused the burning car with foam.”
douse is a drenching.
The word is probably Scandinavian, related to Danish dunse, to thump. Old English dwaescan, to extinguish, may have influenced it.
Probably of gmq - origin, related to Swedish dunsa (“to plumb down, fall clumsily”), Danish dunse (“to thump”). Compare Old English dwǣsċan (“to extinguish”) and douse below.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Camping & Outdoors