DROUGHT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does drought mean? 

• DROUGHT (noun)
  The noun DROUGHT has 2 senses:

1. a shortage of rainfall

2. a prolonged shortage

  Familiarity information: DROUGHT used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DROUGHT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A shortage of rainfall

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

drought; drouth

Context example:

farmers most affected by the drought hope that there may yet be sufficient rain early in the growing season

Hypernyms ("drought" is a kind of...):

dryness; waterlessness; xerotes (the condition of not containing or being covered by a liquid (especially water))

Sense 2

Meaning:

A prolonged shortage

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Synonyms:

drought; drouth

Context example:

when England defeated Pakistan it ended a ten-year drought

Hypernyms ("drought" is a kind of...):

period; period of time; time period (an amount of time)

 Context examples 

Trees respond to the stress of drought by closing these pores.

(What's killing trees during droughts?, National Science Foundation)

In mountain landscapes, saprolite may be the only thing keeping forests alive during times of drought.

(Study explores how rock expands near soil surface in Sierra Nevada, National Science Foundation)

The fungi also can help plants recover from stressful conditions, such as periods of drought.

(Plant gene discovery could help reduce fertilizer pollution in waterways, National Science Foundation)

Loss of water from the rocks of California's Sierra Nevada caused the mountain range to rise nearly an inch (24 millimeters) in height during the drought years from October 2011 to October 2015.

(Sierras Lost Water Weight, Grew Taller During Drought, NASA)

I then worked the lawn very carefully for signs and traces, but this drought has made everything as hard as iron.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Identifying that Rider activity is triggered by drought suggests that it can create new gene regulatory networks that would help a plant respond to drought,” said Benoit.

(Harnessing tomato jumping genes could help speed-breed drought-resistant crops, University of Cambridge)

Depending on when and where they develop, blocking events can cause droughts or downpours and heat waves or cold spells.

(Stalled weather patterns will get bigger due to climate change, National Science Foundation)

In periods of drought, more water evaporates from lakes such as Chichancanab, and because the lighter isotopes of water evaporate faster, the water becomes heavier.

(Scientists measure severity of drought during the Maya collapse, University of Cambridge)

It is tolerant of saline soils, drought conditions, and secondary soils.

(Morinda citrifolia, NCI Thesaurus)

East Asian floods, African droughts and the frequent California fires may be linked to the rapid warming of the Indo-Pacific Ocean that impacts global rainfall patterns and corresponding weather, says a new study.

(Global disasters linked to warming Indo-Pacific seas, SciDev.Net)