Etymology

drain

D2R1A1I1N1

Today it means: A conduit allowing liquid to flow out of an otherwise contained volume; a plughole (UK) Full definition →

Middle English *dreinen ← Old English drēahnian ← Proto-West Germanic *drauhnōn
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

drain · noun, verb1

  1. Proto-Indo-European*dʰer-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*dʰrewgʰ-
  3. Proto-Germanic*draugiz
  4. Proto-Germanic*drauhnōną
  5. Proto-West Germanic*drauhnōn
  6. Old Englishdrēahnian
  7. Middle English*dreinen
  8. English todaydrain

Inherited from Middle English *dreinen, from Old English drēahnian, from Proto-West Germanic *drauhnōn, from Proto-Germanic *drauhnōną, from *draugiz, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrewgʰ-, from *dʰer-. Akin to Old English drūgian (“to dry up”), Old English drūgaþ (“dryness, drought”), Old English drȳġe (“dry”). More at dry.

Drain · proper noun2

  1. Old French · derived fromdererain“the last”
  2. English todayDrain

* As an Irish surname, from Ó Dreáin (“descendant of Dreán”), probably from dreán (“wren, songbird”) (see Welsh dryw (“wren”)). * Also as an Irish surname, from Ó Druacháin; see Drohan. * As an English surname, occupational surname related to the noun drain. * Also as an English surname, spelling variant of Drane. * As a French surname, reduced from Derain, from Old French dererain (“the last”), nickname for the youngest son of a family; see derrière (“behind”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.