/drowt/ , n.
1. a period of dry weather, esp. a long one that is injurious to crops.
2. an extended shortage: a drought of good writing.
3. Archaic. thirst.
Also, drouth /drowth/ .
[ bef. 1000; ME; OE drugath, equiv. to drug- (base of dryge DRY) + -ath -TH 1 ; c. D droogte dryness ]
Syn. 2. scarcity, lack, want, dearth, paucity, famine.
Pronunciation . DROUGHT and DROUTH, nouns derived from the adjective dry plus a suffix, are spellings that represent two phonetic developments of the same Old English word, and are pronounced /drowt/ and /drowth/ respectively. The latter pronunciation, therefore, is not a mispronunciation of DROUGHT. The now unproductive suffix -th 1 and its alternate form -t were formerly used to derive nouns from adjectives or verbs, resulting in such pairs as DROUTH - DROUGHT from dry and highth - height (the former now obsolete) from high.
In American English, DROUGHT with the pronunciation /drowt/ is common everywhere in educated speech, and is the usual printed form.