Other forms: drenched, drenching, drenches
To drench something is to soak it completely through. Not damp — wet to the skin.
The word is usually passive, since people get drenched by rain rather than drenching themselves. It takes in or with when something else does the soaking, as in drenched in sweat. There is a warmer figurative use about light and colour, since a room drenched in sunlight is filled with it. Farming has a technical noun, since a drench is a dose of liquid medicine given to livestock.
To drench was to make somebody drink. Old English drenċ meant a drink, a potion or a dose of medicine, and drenching was administering it, which is how the word came to mean soaked through.
Proto-Indo-European
*dʰrenǵ- — to draw, pull; to gulp; to sip
Proto-Germanic
*drankiz — drink; potion; dose
Proto-West Germanic
*dranki
Old English
drenċ — drink; draft, potion; dose (of medicine, poison, etc.)
Middle English
drench
English, today
drench
Built from
From Middle English drench, drenche (“beverage, drink; cup of drink, specifically a poisoned drink; medicinal potion, specifically an emetic (?)”)drænc, drænce, drenc, drencche, drence, dreinch, drenke, drunch, from Old English drenċ (“drink; draft, potion; dose (of medicine, poison, etc.)”), from Proto-West Germanic dranki, from Proto-Germanic drankiz (“drink; potion; dose”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European dʰrenǵ- (“to draw, pull; to gulp; to sip”). a doublet of drink (noun). 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA