different between drizzle vs showery

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

Etymology

shower +? -y

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -a???i

Adjective

showery (comparative showerier, superlative showeriest)

1. Given to showers; having frequent rainfall.
   • 1902, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Chapter 3, [1]

     A gentleman goes forth on a showery and miry day. He returns immaculate in the evening with the gloss still on his hat and his boots.

   • 2007, William Trevor, "The Children" in Cheating at Canasta, New York: Viking, pp. 157-8,

     The sun came out after what had been a showery morning, allowing the celebration to take place in the garden.

2. Of or relating to a shower or showers.
   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 6, lines 757-9, [2]

     Over their heads a crystal firmament, / Whereon a sapphire throne, inlaid with pure / Amber, and colours of the showery arch.

   • 1951, C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian, Collins, 1998, Chapter 9,

     She knew exactly how each of these trees would talk if only she could wake them, and what sort of human form it would put on. She looked at a silver birch: it would have a soft, showery voice and would look like a slender girl, with hair blown all about her face, and fond of dancing.

Anagrams

• Howerys