DROUGHT


Meaning of DROUGHT in English

drought /draʊt/ BrE AmE noun [uncountable and countable]

[ Language: Old English ; Origin: drugath ; related to dry ]

a long period of dry weather when there is not enough water for plants and animals to live

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THESAURUS

■ natural disasters

▪ earthquake a sudden shaking of the earth’s surface that often causes a lot of damage:

A powerful earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

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It was the biggest earthquake to hit the Pacific Northwest for 52 years.

▪ flood a very large amount of water that covers an area that is usually dry:

Bangladesh has been hit by a series of devastating floods (=very bad floods) .

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The crisis began with floods that covered one third of the countryside.

▪ drought a long period of dry weather when there is not enough water for plants and animals to live:

The country experienced its worst drought this century.

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In East Africa, three years of drought have left 10 million people in urgent need of food and water.

▪ famine a situation in which a large number of people have little or no food for a long time and many people die:

Poor harvests led to famine.

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4,000,000 people are threatened by famine in northern Ethiopia.

▪ hurricane a storm that has very strong fast winds and that moves over water – used about storms in the North Atlantic Ocean:

extreme weather such as hurricanes

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Hurricane Andrew left southern Florida in ruins.

▪ typhoon a violent tropical storm – used about storms in the Western Pacific Ocean:

A typhoon has hit the Philippines, lifting roofs off houses and uprooting trees.

▪ tsunami a very large wave, caused by extreme conditions such as an earthquake, which can cause a lot of damage when it reaches land:

Thousands of people were killed in the tsunami.

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Many Pacific earthquakes have generated tsunamis.

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English.      Longman - Словарь современного английского языка.