A long period of unusually low rainfall that leads to a shortage of water. It can cause serious problems for farming, drinking water, and natural ecosystems.
From Old English 'drought' or 'drugoth', from 'drūgian' meaning 'to dry', related to 'dry'. The spelling stabilized to 'drought' in Modern English. The word has always been tied to dryness and lack of rain.
Droughts often build slowly and silently, which makes them less dramatic than storms but sometimes more destructive. They don’t just mean 'no rain'; they mean stressed crops, wildfires, and migration. The word names an absence that can shape whole civilizations.
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