Other forms: drains, drained, draining
To drain something is to let the liquid run out of it and keep what is left behind. Pasta tipped into a colander, a tin of chickpeas held under the tap, the bath emptying with a gurgle after the children get out.
The noun is the hole and the pipe that carry the water away: the drain in the shower, a blocked drain, rain running into the drains at the kerb. Then the word goes figurative, and it goes hard. A long day drains you, after three flights you are drained, his face drained of colour when the phone rang at midnight. A drain on something is a steady loss — a drain on resources, a drain on the budget — and money down the drain is money gone for good. Note which way the verb faces: you drain the pasta, and the water drains away by itself.
1verbdrainTo let liquid run out of something, leaving the solid part behind.
“Drain the potatoes and put them back in the hot pan.”
Patterndrain + noun (pasta, rice, the sink) · drain off / away · well drained · a colander / drainer
2verbemptyTo flow away, or to make liquid flow away.
“The rainwater drains into a ditch behind the houses.”
3verbexhaustTo use up someone's strength, money or supplies.
“The night shifts drained him more than he ever admitted.”
4noungutterA pipe or opening that carries water and waste away.
“A wad of leaves had blocked the drain outside the back door.”
5nounburdenSomething that steadily uses up money, energy or supplies.
“The old boiler is a drain on the heating bill.”
synonyms: burden
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
It comes from the same root as dry: tip the pot over the sink, let the water run away, and what is left is dry.
hooks ontodry
Drain is kin to Old English drūgian, 'to dry up', and drȳġe, which is our word dry. That is the whole idea in one line: to drain a thing is to dry it out by letting the wet leave.
Proto-Germanic
*drauhnōną
Proto-West Germanic
*drauhnōn
Old English
drēahnian
Middle English
*dreinen
English, today
drain
From Middle English dreinen, from Old English drēahnian, from Proto-West Germanic drauhnōn, from Proto-Germanic drauhnōną, from draugiz. Akin to Old English drūgian (“to dry up”), Old English drūgaþ (“dryness, drought”), Old English drȳġe (“dry”). More at dry*.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA