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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

drizzle.

To rain lightly.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈdɹɪzəl/[ˈdɹɪzl̩]
  1. To rain lightly.

    impersonal
    We had planned a picnic for Joe's birthday, but it ended up drizzling all day.
  2. To shed slowly in minute drops or particles.

    ambitransitive
  3. To pour slowly and evenly, especially oil or honey in cooking.

    transitive
    The recipe says to toss the salad and then drizzle olive oil on it.
  4. To cover by pouring in this manner.

    transitive
    The recipe says to toss the salad and then drizzle it in olive oil.
  5. To urinate.

    slang
    She'll be right back, had to drizzle before we leave.
  6. To carry out parfilage, the process of unravelling.

    dated
Where this word comes from

Perhaps a back-formation from dryseling, a dissimilated variant of Middle English drysning (“a falling of dew”), from , related to Old English drēosan (“to fall, to decline”), making it cognate to modern English droze and drowse. Compare also dialectal Swedish drösla.

noun/ˈdɹɪzəl/[ˈdɹɪzl̩]
  1. Light rain.

    countable · uncountable
  2. Very small, numerous, and uniformly dispersed water drops, mist, or sprinkle. Unlike fog droplets, drizzle falls to the ground.

    countable · uncountable
    No longer pouring, the rain outside slowed down to a faint drizzle.
  3. Water.

    countable · slang · uncountable
    Stop drinking all of my drizzle!
  4. Something that is drizzled.

    countable · uncountable
  5. A cake onto which icing, honey or syrup has been drizzled in an artistic manner.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Perhaps a back-formation from dryseling, a dissimilated variant of Middle English drysning (“a falling of dew”), from , related to Old English drēosan (“to fall, to decline”), making it cognate to modern English droze and drowse. Compare also dialectal Swedish drösla.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.