different between drown vs swamp

English

Etymology

From Middle English drownen, drounen, drunen (“to drown”), of obscure and uncertain origin.

The OED suggests an unattested Old English form *dr?nian . Harper 2001 points to Old English druncnian, ?edruncnian (> 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.

Pronunciation

• enPR: droun, IPA^(key): /d?a?n/, [d??????a?n]
• Rhymes: -a?n

Verb

drown (third-person singular simple present drowns, present participle drowning, simple past and past participle drowned)

1. (intransitive) To die from suffocation while immersed in water or other fluid.

   When I was a baby, I nearly drowned in the bathtub.

   • 1594, William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece,^[1]

     Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild;

     Continuance tames the one; the other wild,

     Like an unpractised swimmer plunging still,

     With too much labour drowns for want of skill.

2. (transitive) 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.

   • c. 1590, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act III, Scene 2,^[2]

     The pretty-vaulting sea refused to drown me,

     Knowing that thou wouldst have me drown’d on shore,

     With tears as salt as sea, through thy unkindness:

3. (intransitive) 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.

   • 1990, House of Cards, Season 1, Episode 2:

     Penny Guy: Bloody hell, Rog, whadda you want?
     Roger O'Neill: To drown in your arms and hide in yer eyes, darlin'.

4. (transitive, figuratively) To inundate, submerge, overwhelm.

   He drowns his sorrows in buckets of chocolate ice cream.

   • 1599, John Davies, Nosce Teipsum, London: John Standish, p. 19,^[3]

     Though most men being in sensuall pleasures drownd,

     It seemes their Soules but in the Senses are.

   • c. 1606, William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, Scene 7,^[4]

     Come, thou monarch of the vine,

     Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne!

     In thy fats our cares be drown’d,

     With thy grapes our hairs be crown’d:

   • 1713, Joseph Addison, Cato, a Tragedy, London: J. Tonson, Act II, Scene 1, p. 23,^[5]

     My private Voice is drown’d amid the Senate’s.

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Dublin: John Smith, Volume 2, Book 7, Chapter 14, pp. 71-72,^[6]

     Unluckily that worthy Officer having, in a literal Sense, taken his Fill of Liquor, had been some Time retired to his Bolster, where he was snoaring so loud, that it was not easy to convey a Noise in at his Ears capable of drowning that which issued from his Nostrils.

5. (transitive, figuratively, usually passive) 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.

Usage notes

When using the term figuratively to describe overwhelming sounds, the form drown out is now usually employed.

Synonyms

• (to cover, as with water): flood, inundate

Derived terms

Translations

References

Anagrams

• N-word, n-word

Welsh

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /drou?n/

Verb

drown

1. Soft mutation of trown.

Mutation

English

Alternative forms

• swomp (obsolete)

Etymology

From a fusion of Middle English swam (“swamp, muddy pool, bog, marsh", also "fungus, mushroom”), from Old English swamm (“mushroom, fungus, sponge”), and Middle English sompe (“marsh, morass”), from Middle Dutch somp, sump (“marsh, swamp”), or Middle Low German sump (“marsh, swamp”), from Old Saxon *sump (“swamp, marsh”); all from Proto-Germanic *sumpaz. Cognate with Dutch zwamp (“swamp, marsh, fen”), Middle Low German swamp (“sponge, mushroom”), Dutch zomp (“swamp, lake, marshy place”), German Low German Sump (“swamp, bog,marsh”), German Sumpf (“swamp”), Swedish sump (“swamp”). Related also to Dutch zwam (“fungus, punk, tinder”), German Schwamm (“mushroom, fungus, sponge”), Swedish svamp (“mushroom, fungus, sponge”), Icelandic svampur, sveppur (“fungus”), Gothic ???????????????????????? (swumsl, “a ditch”). Related to sump, swim.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /sw?mp/
• (US) IPA^(key): /sw?mp/
• Rhymes: -?mp

Noun

swamp (plural swamps)

1. A piece of wet, spongy land; low ground saturated with water; soft, wet ground which may have a growth of certain kinds of trees, but is unfit for agricultural or pastoral purposes.
2. A type of wetland that stretches for vast distances, and is home to many creatures which have adapted specifically to that environment.
3. (figuratively) A place or situation that is foul or where progress is difficult.

Derived terms

Descendants

• Sranan Tongo: swampu
• ? Dutch: zwamp

Translations

See also

• bog
• marsh
• moor

Verb

swamp (third-person singular simple present swamps, present participle swamping, simple past and past participle swamped)

1. To drench or fill with water.

2. To overwhelm; to make too busy, or overrun the capacity of.
   • 2006, New York Times,

     Mr. Spitzer’s defeat of his Democratic opponent ... ended a primary season in which Hillary Rodham Clinton swamped an antiwar challenger for renomination to the Senate.

3. (figuratively) To plunge into difficulties and perils; to overwhelm; to ruin; to wreck.
   • 1874, John Richard Green, A Short History of the English People

     The Whig majority of the house of Lords was swamped by the creation of twelve Tory peers.

   • c. 1835, William Hamilton, "Metaphysics and Moral Science", in Edinburgh Review

     Having swamped himself in following the ignis fatuus of a theory […]

Translations

Anagrams

• wamps