drowse
An act, or a state, of being drowsy or sleepy.
Noun
- An act, or a state, of being drowsy or sleepy.
- in a drowse
- He saw his mother's face, accepting it / In change for heaven itself, with such a smile / As might have been learnt there,—never moved, / But smiled on, in a drowse of ecstasy, / So happy (half with her and half with...
- On a sudden, many a voice along the street, / And heel against the pavement echoing, burst / Their drowze; […] - 1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Enid”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, page 60:
- A state of dullness or inactivity, as if from sleepiness.
- Here, in this latest August dawn, / By windows opening on the lawn, / Where shadows yet are sharp with night, / And sunshine seems asleep, though bright; / And, further on, the wealthy wheat / Bends in a golden drowse,...
Origin
The verb is either: * a back-formation from drowsy, which is attested earlier; or * possibly from Middle English *drousen (no known attestations), from Old English drūsan, drūsian (“to droop, sink; to become feeble, inactive, low, or slow, drowse”), from Proto-Germanic *drūsijaną (“to look down; mourn”) (possibly merged with *dreusaną (“to fall”)), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrewHs- (“to break off; to fall down”). The noun is derived from the verb. cognates * Danish drøse (“to be negligent; to slow down”) * Dutch drozen (“to doze; muse”) * German trauern (“to mourn, be sad”) * Gothic 𐌳𐍂𐌹𐌿𐍃𐌰𐌽 (driusan, “to fall; to fall down”) * Norwegian døse (“to drowse”) * Old English drēosan (“to fall; to perish; to rush”) (whence Middle English dresen (“to fall down”)) * Swedish drösa (“to be slow”)
Forms
Verb
- To make (someone or something) heavy with drowsiness or sleepiness.
- Novv vvhen as vvine had drovvned and drouſed the underſtanding: vvhen the night ſeaſon, vvhen the entermingling of men and vvomen together one vvith another (and namely, they of young and tender yeeres, vvith thoſe of...
- But novv the Fume of his aboundant Drink, / Drouzing his Brain, beginneth to deface / The ſvveet remembrance of her lovely Face: […] - 1614, [Guillaume de Salluste] Du Bartas, “Bethulia’s Rescue. The Wonder of Widowes:...
- A few people were there, loitering away Sunday in their best clothes. The warmth drowsed them and replaced contentment. - 1930, Norman Lindsay, chapter 1, in Every Mother’s Son [Redheap], 1st American edition, New York,...
- Followed by away: to pass (time) drowsily or in sleeping; also, to proceed (on a way) drowsily or sleepily.
- [T]he wary tadpole returned from exile, the bullfrog resumed his ancient song, the tranquil turtle sunned his back upon bank and log and drowsed his grateful life away as in the old sweet days of yore. - 1873, Mark...
- Why plague me who am pledged to home-delights? / I'm the engaged now: through whose fault but yours? / On duty. As you well know. Don't I drowse / The week away down with the Aunt and Niece? / No help: it's leisure,...
- [William] Congreve held fast to the Greek poets, but otherwise seems to have drowsed his way through Trinity studies. - 1941, John C[unyus] Hodges, “Trinity College and Smock Alley”, in William Congreve the Man: A...
- To make (someone or something) dull or inactive, as if from sleepiness.
- Then, father, I will lead your legions forth, / Compact in steeled squares, and speared files, / And bid our trumpets speak a fell rebuke / To nations drows'd in peace! - a. 1822 (date written), John Keats,...
- In a letter, however, to Lady Beaumont [Margaret, wife of Sir George Beaumont, 7th Baronet] of March, 1826, there is a passage which it is interesting to compare with the 'Work without Hope' ("All nature seems at work,"...
- Often followed by away or off: to be drowsy or sleepy; to be half-asleep.
- He vvas […] Seene, but vvith ſuch eie / As ſicke and blunted vvith communitie, / Affoord no extraordinary gaze, / Such as is bent on ſu[n]-like maieſtie, / VVhen it ſhines ſeldome in admiring eies, / But rather...
- [T]hen to my office again, where I could not hold my eyes open for an houre, but I drowsed (so little sensible I apprehend my soul is of necessity of minding business), but anon I wakened and minded my business, and did...
- [T]he Cohort bright / Of vvatchful Cherubim; four faces each / Had, like a double Janus, all thir ſhape / Spangl'd vvith eyes more numerous then thoſe / Of Argus, and more vvakeful then to drouze, […] - 1667, John...
- To be dull or inactive, as if from sleepiness.
- Ill huſbandry drowſeth at fortune ſo awke, / good huſbandry rowſeth him ſelfe like a hawke. - 1570, Thomas Tusser, “Comparing Good Husband with Vnthrift His Brother, the Better Descerneth the Tone from the Tother”, in A...
- Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove / The Danaïd of a leaky vase, for fear / This whole foundation ruin, and I lose / My honour, these their lives. - 1847, Alfred Tennyson, “Part II”, in The Princess: A...
- The Leam [a river in England]—the "high complectioned Leam," as [Michael] Drayton calls it—after drowsing across the principal street of the town [Leamington Spa] beneath a handsome bridge, skirts along the margin of...
Forms
drowses drowsing drowsed no-table-tags glossary drowse drowsest drowsedst drowseth -