droop

present singular third person droops · participle present drooping · participle past drooped · past drooped

1. intransitiveTo hang downward; to sag.

   a. 1992, quote attributed to Sylvester Stallone I'm not handsome in the classical sense. The eyes droop, the mouth is crooked, the teeth aren't straight, the voice sounds like a Mafioso pallbearer, but somehow it all works.

   2 more examples

   On the brown harvest tree / Droops the red cherry.

   1866, John Keegan Casey, “Maire My Girl”, in A Wreath of Shamrocks, Dublin: Robert S. McGee, page 20

   Long before Shap platform showed up around a corner and the two arms on the gradient post drooped in both directions at once, Duchess of Buccleuch's amiable throbbing purr at the stack [funnel, chimney] had become a fierce freight-engine bark, as she resolutely dragged at her enormous load.

   1949 January and February, F. G. Roe, “I Saw Three Englands–1”, in Railway Magazine, page 12

   Synonyms: lop

2. intransitiveTo slowly become limp; to bend gradually.

   His head had drooped with his hair across his face.

   2010, john g rees, Halocline

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   Good things of day begin to droop and drowse; / While night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.

   c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]

   The Grapes that on it hung were black, and all / The Vines supported and from drooping staid / With silver Props, that down they could not fall […]

   1676, Thomas Hobbes, transl., Homer’s Iliads in English, London: William Crook, Book 18, p. 289

   Long after his cigar burnt bitter, he sat with eyes fixed on the blaze. When the flames at last began to flicker and subside, his lids fluttered, then drooped; but he had lost all reckoning of time when he opened them again to find Miss Erroll in furs and ball-gown kneeling on the hearth[…].

   1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter III, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC

   Others who conscientiously attended the Technical College at night often drooped over their desks in a doze, and one does not wonder at it.

   1944 September and October, A Former Pupil, “Some Memories of Crewe Works—I”, in Railway Magazine, page 285

   She was trying to hang in, but her chin was drooping onto her chest.

   2012, Howie Carr, Hard Knocks

3. intransitiveTo lose all energy, enthusiasm or happiness; to flag.

   But wherefore do you droop? why look you sad?

   c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]

   4 more examples

   Amidst the peaceful Triumphs of his Reign, / What wonder if the kindly beams he shed / Reviv’d the drooping Arts again […]

   1685, John Dryden, Threnodia Augustalis, London: Jacob Tonson, XII, p. 17

   I saw him accidentally once or twice about 10 Days before he died, and observed he began very much to Droop and Languish […]

   1711 (date written), [Jonathan Swift], Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, volume I, London: […] John Morphew […], published 1711, →OCLC, page 284

   I’ll animate the Soldier’s drooping Courage, / With Love of Freedom, and Contempt of Life.

   1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act I, scene ii, page 5

   And I should tell him all my pain, / ⁠And how my life had droop’d of late, / ⁠And he should sorrow o’er my state / And marvel what possess’d my brain; […]

   1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XIV”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 22

4. transitiveTo allow to droop or sink.

   1892, Arthur Christopher Benson, “Knapweed” in Le Cahier Jaune: Poems, Eton: privately printed, p. 62, Down in the mire he droops his head; Forgotten, not forgiven.

   1 more example

   […] pithless arms, like to a wither’d vine / That droops his sapless branches to the ground;

   1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene v]

5. figurativelyintransitiveTo proceed downward, or toward a close; to decline.

   Share prices are drooping.

   2025 December 27, “Cocktails in a can are the new frontier for drooping drinks giants”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 18

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   […] let us forth, / I never from thy side henceforth to stray, / Wherere our days work lies, though now enjoind / Laborious, till day droop […]

   1667, John Milton, “Book XI”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 175-178

   […] and now when day / Droop’d, and the chapel tinkled, mixt with those / Six hundred maidens clad in purest white […]

   1847, Alfred Tennyson, “Part II”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 46

plural droops

1. Something which is limp or sagging.
2. A condition or posture of drooping.

   He walked with a discouraged droop.

3. aeronauticsA hinged portion of the leading edge of an aeroplane's wing, which swivels downward to increase lift during takeoff and landing.

comparative more droop · superlative most droop

1. archaicDrooping; adroop.

   But when the melancholy fit shall fall / Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, / That fosters the droop-headed flowers all. / And hides the green hill in an April shroud :

   c. 1880s, C. M. Kirtland, “Ode on Melancholy”, in Poetry of the Flowers, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., page 505