A shortage of rainfall:
— Farmers most affected by the drought hope that there may yet be sufficient rain early in the growing season.

synonym: drouth.

Roget 640: insufficiency; inadequacy, inadequateness; incompetence etc. (impotence) 158; deficiency etc. (incompleteness) 53; imperfection etc. 651; shortcoming etc. 304; paucity; stint; scantiness etc. (smallness) 32; none to spare, bare subsistence.    scarcity, dearth; want, need, lack, poverty, exigency; inanition, starvation, famine, drought.    dole, mite, pittance; short allowance, short commons; half rations; banyan day.    emptiness, poorness etc. adj.; depletion, vacancy, flaccidity; ebb tide; low water; a beggarly account of empty boxes" [Romeo and Juliet]; indigence etc. 804; insolvency etc. (nonpayment) 808.    ... show more

Roget 340: dryness etc. adj.; siccity^†, aridity, drought, ebb tide, low water.    exsiccation^†, desiccation; arefaction^†, dephlegmation^†, drainage; drier.    [chemical subs. which renders dry] desiccative, dessicator.    [device to render dry] dessicator; hair drier, clothes drier, gas drier, electric drier; vacuum oven, drying oven, kiln; lyophilizer.    clothesline.    ... show more

Roget 554: representation, representment^†; imitation etc. 19; illustration, delineation, depictment^†; imagery, portraiture, iconography; design, designing; art, fine arts; painting etc. 556; sculpture etc. 557; engraving etc. 558; photography, cinematography; radiography, autoradiography [Bioch.], fluorography [Chem], sciagraphy^†.    personation, personification; impersonation; drama etc. 599.    picture, photo, photograph, daguerreotype, snapshot; X-ray photo; movie film, movie; tracing, scan, TV image, video image, image file, graphics, computer graphics, televideo, closed-circuit TV.    copy etc. 21; drawing, sketch, drought, draft; plot, chart, figure, scheme.    image, likeness, icon, portrait, striking likeness, speaking likeness; very image; effigy, facsimile.    figure, figure head; puppet, doll, figurine, aglet^†, manikin, lay-figure, model, mammet^†, marionette, fantoccini^†, waxwork, bust; statue, statuette.    ideograph, hieroglyphic, anaglyph, kanji [Jap.]; diagram, monogram.    map, plan, chart, ground plan, projection, elevation (plan) 626.    ichnography^†, cartography; atlas; outline, scheme; view etc. (painting) 556; radiograph, scotograph^†, sciagraph^†; spectrogram, heliogram^†.    ... show more

Dutch: droogte
Polish: posucha, susza

A prolonged shortage:
— When England defeated Pakistan it ended a ten-year drought.

synonym: drouth.

Dutch: droogte
Polish: posucha