draught
pronunciation
How to pronounce draught in British English:
UK [drɑːft]
How to pronounce draught in American English:
US [dræft]
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- Noun:
- a serving of drink (usually alcoholic) drawn from a keg
- a large and hurried swallow
- a current of air (usually coming into a room or vehicle)
- the depth of a vessel's keel below the surface (especially when loaded)
- a dose of liquid medicine
- the act of moving a load by drawing or pulling
-
- Verb:
- make a blueprint of
Word Origin
- draught
- draught: [12] Draught and draft are essentially the same word, but draft (more accurately representing its modern English pronunciation) has become established since the 18th century as the spelling for ‘preliminary drawing or plan’, ‘money order’, and (in American English) ‘conscription’. The word itself probably comes from an unrecorded Old Norse *drahtr, an abstract noun meaning ‘pulling’ derived from a prehistoric Germanic verb *dragan (source of English drag and draw).Most of its modern English meanings are fairly transparently descended from the idea of ‘pulling’: ‘draught beer’, for example, is ‘drawn’ from a barrel. Of the less obvious ones, ‘current of air’ is air that is ‘drawn’ through an opening; the game draughts comes from an earlier, Middle English sense of draught, ‘act of drawing a piece across the board in chess and similar games’; while draft ‘provisional plan’ was originally ‘something drawn or sketched’.=> draft, drag, draw
- draught (n.)
- c. 1200, from Old English *dreaht, *dræht, related to dragan "to draw, drag" (see drag (v.)). Oldest sense besides that of "pulling" is of "drinking." It retains the functions that did not branch off with draft (q.v.).
Example
- 1. Take an examination of at a draught attended people college .
- 2. Candles spend fast in draught .
- 3. He drank the wine in one draught .
- 4. They have to contend against draught every year .
- 5. The region was visited by the worst draught in twenty years .