drown

To suffocate beneath some liquid interjecting between the oxygen in the air and your lungs. Interestingly, the lungs cannot function without a small small layer of moisture covering the tubes inside of them, so we are constantly drowning to some degree.

Drown (?), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Drowned (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Drowning.] [OE. drunen, drounen, earlier drunknen, druncnien, AS. druncnian to be drowned, sink, become drunk, fr. druncen drunken. See Drunken, Drink.]

To be suffocated in water or other fluid; to perish in water.

Methought, what pain it was to drown. Shak.

© Webster 1913.

Drown, v. t.

1.

To overwhelm in water; to submerge; to inundate.

Dryden.

2.

To deprive of life by immersion in water or other liquid.

3.

To overpower; to overcome; to extinguish; -- said especially of sound.

Most men being in sensual pleasures drowned. Sir J. Davies.

My private voice is drowned amid the senate. Addison.

To drown up, to swallow up. [Obs.]

Holland.

© Webster 1913.