different between drizzle vs flood

English

Etymology

Perhaps a back-formation from dryseling, a dissimilated variant of Middle English drysning (“a falling of dew”), from Old English drysnan (“to extinguish”), related to Old English dr?osan (“to fall, to decline”), making it cognate to modern English droze and drowse. Compare also dialectal Swedish drösla.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?d??z.l/
• Rhymes: -?z?l
• Hyphenation: driz?zle

Verb

drizzle (third-person singular simple present drizzles, present participle drizzling, simple past and past participle drizzled)

1. (impersonal) To rain lightly.

2. (transitive, intransitive) To shed slowly in minute drops or particles.
   • 1579, Edmund Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender, London, Januarye, Aegloga prima,^[1]

     And from mine eyes the drizling teares descend,

     As on your boughes the ysicles depend.

   • c. 1594, William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene 5,^[2]

     When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;

     But for the sunset of my brother’s son

     It rains downright.

3. (cooking, transitive) To pour slowly and evenly, especially oil or honey in cooking.

4. (cooking, transitive) To cover by pouring in this manner.

5. (slang) To urinate. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
6. (dated) To carry out parfilage, the process of unravelling.

Translations

Noun

drizzle (countable and uncountable, plural drizzles)

1. Light rain.
2. (physics, weather) Very small, numerous, and uniformly dispersed water drops, mist, or sprinkle. Unlike fog droplets, drizzle falls to the ground.

3. (slang) Water.

4. (baking) A cake onto which icing, honey or syrup has been drizzled in an artistic manner.
   • April 19, 2013,Felicity Cloake, "How to Cook the Perfect Lemon Drizzle Cake" in The Guardian

     Drizzle is not normally good news. Not when it's falling from the sky, not when it's replacing a decent helping of sauce, and especially not when it's found on a menu in close proximity to the words "balsamic vinegar". Deliciously sticky, sweet and sour lemon drizzle cake is the one, and very honourable, exception.

Derived terms

• drizzly
• drizzler

Translations

Anagrams

• rizzled

English

Alternative forms

• floud (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English flod, from Old English fl?d, from Proto-West Germanic *fl?du, from Proto-Germanic *fl?duz, from *plew- (“to flow”). Cognate with Scots flude, fluid, Saterland Frisian Floud, Dutch vloed, German Flut, Danish flod, Icelandic flóð, and Gothic ???????????????????????? (fl?dus).

Pronunciation

• enPR: fl?d, IPA^(key): /fl?d/
• Rhymes: -?d

Noun

flood (plural floods)

1. A (usually disastrous) overflow of water from a lake or other body of water due to excessive rainfall or other input of water.
   • Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations.
2. (figuratively) A large number or quantity of anything appearing more rapidly than can easily be dealt with.
3. The flowing in of the tide, opposed to the ebb.
4. A floodlight.
5. Menstrual discharge; menses.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Harvey to this entry?)

6. (obsolete) Water as opposed to land.
   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost

     Who beheld from the safe shore their floating carcasses and broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown, abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood, under amazement of their hideous change.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• deluge
• diversion
• inundation
• torrent

Verb

flood (third-person singular simple present floods, present participle flooding, simple past and past participle flooded)

1. To overflow, as by water from excessive rainfall.
2. To cover or partly fill as if by a flood.

   The floor was flooded with beer.

   They flooded the room with sewage.

3. (figuratively) To provide (someone or something) with a larger number or quantity of something than can easily be dealt with.
4. (Internet, transitive, intransitive) To paste numerous lines of text to (a chat system) in order to disrupt the conversation.
   • 1998, "Dr. Cat", Furry web site plug (on newsgroup alt.fan.furry)

     There's also a spam filter in the code now, so if someone attempts to flood people's screens with macros or a bot, everything after the first few lines is thrown away.

5. To bleed profusely, as after childbirth.

Antonyms

• (overflow): drain

Synonyms

• (overflow): overfill
• (cover): inundate
• (provide with large number): inundate, swamp, deluge

Derived terms

Translations

References

Anagrams

• of old

Middle English

Noun

flood

1. Alternative form of flod

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from English flood.

Pronunciation

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /?fl?d??/

Noun

flood m (plural floods)

1. (Internet slang) a flood of superfluous text messages

Related terms

• floodar