Dreen

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. In Scottish dialect, to fall gently as a fine drizzle or to drip slowly in a thin, steady stream
2. A Scots regional verb meaning to drizzle lightly, with rain falling in a fine, persistent mist
3. Used in Scots speech to describe moisture coming down slowly in small drops, like a light, dreary drizzle

Etymology: "Dreen" is a dialect and alternative spelling of "drain," and it reaches back to a root that is about dryness rather than water. The verb descends from Old English "drēahnian," which arrived in English through a Proto-Germanic base meaning "to dry up." That same ancestry gives Old English "drūgian" (to dry up), "drūgaþ" (dryness, drought) and "drȳġe" (dry), so the word for draining a field and the word for a parched landscape are cousins. The spelling "dreen" is simply an older or regional way of writing the same sound. The Middle English form was "dreinen," which passed into modern English as "drain," while "dreen" kept a spelling closer to the vowel sound of the Old English ancestor.