Droghte

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An extended spell of dry weather with too little rainfall to support crops or water supplies ; the painful craving for water that comes from having gone without drink
2. A long stretch without rain that leaves the land parched and short of water ; the dry, desperate longing for a drink that a body feels when deprived of fluids
3. A prolonged dearth of rain that parches the ground ; an archaic term for the thirst a person suffers when deprived of water

Etymology: Middle English "droghte" is the ancestor of modern "drought", and its spelling is the clue to what happened to it. The word came from Old English "drūgaþ" (dryness), itself built from the adjective "drȳge" (dry) plus the suffix "-þ", which turned adjectives into abstract nouns. The Old English form was pronounced with a long "ū" and a hard "g" sound, and the "gh" in Middle English spellings like "droghte" recorded that consonant. Over the centuries the "gh" stopped being pronounced, and the vowel shifted as well, so the spelling "drought" now preserves a sound that no one speaks. Early English had many words like this, and "drought" is a doublet of nothing; it is simply a native word that has survived with its spelling frozen while its pronunciation moved on. The "-ght" ending is the same pattern you find in "night" and "light," which also once had a sounded "gh."