Other forms: drowned, drowning, drowns
To drown is to die under water because you cannot breathe. He drowned in the river, nearly drowned, drowning is silent.
Real drowning looks nothing like the films: it is quiet and fast, and people usually cannot call out. That is worth knowing near water. It also means to cover something completely in liquid — drowned in gravy — and to make a sound impossible to hear: drowned out by the traffic. Note drown your sorrows, meaning to drink because you are unhappy, and drowning in work, meaning overwhelmed.
1verbdrownTo die under water from being unable to breathe.
“Two people drowned there in the same summer.”
2verbsoundTo make a sound impossible to hear.
“The applause drowned out the last three words.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
drown is a way of dying, or of overwhelming.
Middle English drounen is probably from a Norse verb related to drink — the two share a root meaning to draw in liquid. Drown and drink, drench and drunk are all one family.
Middle English
drownen
English, today
drown
Built from
From Middle English drownen, drounen, drunen (“to drown”), of obscure and unknown origin. The OED suggests an unattested Old English form drūnian. Harper 2001 points to Old English druncnian, ġedruncnian (> Middle English drunknen, dronknen (“to drown”)), "probably influenced" by Old Norse drukkna (cf. Icelandic drukkna, Danish drukne (“to drown”)). Funk & Wagnall's has 'of uncertain origin'. It has been theorised (see e.g. ODS) that it may represent a direct loan of Old Norse drukkna, but this is described by the OED as being "on phonetic and other grounds [...] highly improbable", unless one considers the possibility of an unattested variant in Old Norse drunkna.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA