drown
/dɹaʊn/verb
drown is spelled D-R-O-W-N: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 4.8 times per million words in written English, the 11,541st most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, drown means “To die from suffocation while immersed in water or other fluid” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in drown?
| Letters | 5: D-R-O-W-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 4.8 times per million words; the 11,541st most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is drown?
Drown appears 4.8 times per million words in written English, the 11,541st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce drown?
- /dɹaʊn/
- [d̠͡ɹ̠˔ʷaʊn]
- /dɹuːn/
Drown has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-drown.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of drown
- drowns present, singular, he/she/it
- drowning participle, present
- drowned participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does drown mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
To die from suffocation while immersed in water or other fluid.
When I was a baby, I nearly drowned in the bathtub.
- 2
To kill by suffocating in water or another liquid.
The car thief fought with an officer and tried to drown a police dog before being shot while escaping.
- 3
To be flooded: to be inundated with or submerged in (literally) water or (figuratively) other things; to be overwhelmed.
We are drowning in information but starving for wisdom.
- 4
To inundate, submerge, overwhelm.
He drowns his sorrows in buckets of chocolate ice cream.
- 5
To obscure, particularly amid an overwhelming volume of other items.
The answers intelligence services seek are often drowned in the flood of information they can now gather.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Drown in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | se noyer , noyer |
| German | ertrinken , ertränken , überwältigen |
| Portuguese | afogar-se , afogar |
| Spanish | ahogarse, afogarse , ahogar, afogar |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does drown come from?
From Middle English drownen, drounen, drunen (“to drown”), of obscure and uncertain 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.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).