dreich

Meanings

Plural: dreiches

Adj

Extending for a long distance or time, especially when tedious or wearisome; long-drawn-out, protracted; also, of speech or writing: unnecessarily verbose; long-winded.
Not enjoyable or interesting; boring, dull.
Bleak, cheerless, dismal, dreary, miserable.
suitably serious or solemn
of a person: patient, stoic, tolerant, resolute
Slow, sluggish; specifically, of a person: tending to delay or procrastinate (especially when paying for something).
Of a person: having a dejected or serious appearance or mood; dour, gloomy, moody, morose, sullen.
Of a task: laborious, tedious, troublesome; hence, needing concentration to understand; intricate.
Chiefly of rain: without pause or stop; continuous, incessant.
Of weather: dreary, gloomy (cold, overcast, rainy, etc.).
Of a person: negotiating forcefully; driving a hard bargain.
Of a place (especially a hill or mountain): difficult to get through or reach; inaccessible.

Noun

A tedious or troublesome task; also, the most tedious or troublesome part of a task.
Bleakness, gloom; specifically, gloomy (cold, overcast, rainy, etc.) weather.

Origin / Etymology

The adjective is borrowed from Scots dreich (“hard to bear, dreary, tedious, wearisome; interminable, long-winded; dull, uninteresting; slow, tardy; doleful, gloomy; baffling, difficult; difficult to reach, inaccessible”), from Middle English dregh, dri, drie (“burdensome; depressing, dismal; large, tall; lasting, long; long-suffering, patient; tedious; of blows: hard, heavy; of the face: unchanging, unmoved; of a person: strong, valorous”) [and other forms], from Old English *drēog, drēoh (“earnest; fit; sober”), and then probably partly:
* shortened from Old English ġedrēog (“calm, quiet; sober; fit, suitable”, adjective), from ġe- (prefix forming adjectives of association or similarity) + Proto-Germanic *dreugaz (“enduring, lasting”) (from *dreuganą (“to serve, be a retainer”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrewgʰ- (“to serve one’s tribe; loyal”)); and
* influenced by Old Norse drjúgr (“sufficient; excessive, very; great; strong”), from Proto-Germanic *dreugaz (see above).
The noun is probably partly derived:
* from the adjective; and
* borrowed from Scots dreich (“dreariness, gloom”) (rare), probably from Middle English dri, drie (“annoyance, trouble; grief; period of time”) [and other forms], possibly from dri, drie (adjective) (see above).
(Compare Old English ġedrēog (“seemliness; seriousness, sobriety; something appropriate or required”, noun), which did not survive into Middle English.)
Cognates
* German Low German drēg, drēge
* Icelandic drjúgur (“ample; heavy, substantial; long”)
* North Frisian drech
* Old Danish drygh (modern Danish drøj (“heavy; solid, tough”))
* Old Swedish drygher (modern Swedish dryg (“ample, liberal; hard; large; lasting”))
* Saterland Frisian drjooch
* Scots dreich
* West Frisian dreech, drege (“extensive; long-lasting”)

Synonyms

amaranthine, banal, beat, blah, bland, bleak, boring, burdensome, ceaseless, cheerless, circumlocutory, cold, colourless, comfortless, constant, continual, continuate, continuous, crawling, creeping, dark, depressing, desolate, diffuse, dilatory, dire, disconsolate, dismal, doleful, dolesome, drab, drear, drearisome, dreary, dreich, drowsy, dull, dull as dishwater, endless, eternal, everlasting, extended, flat, forlorn, gastropodous, gayless, glacial, gloomsome, gloomy, gray, grim, heavy-footed, ho-hum, humdrum, incessant, inching, inert, infinite, insipid, joyless, labored, lack-laughter, lackluster, lame, languid, lasting, lead-footed, leaden, lethargic, lifeless, longsome, low-speed, lugubrious, lumbering, melancholy, mirthless, miserable, monotonous, mundane, never-ending, no fun at parties, no joke, nonstop, ongoing, palaverous, pedantic, pedestrian, periphrastic, permanent, perpetual, persistent, plain, pleonastic, plodding, pokey, ponderous, prolix, prosaic, prosy, relentless, rigmarole, saturnine, sesquipedalian, slothlike, slow, slow as a snail, slow as Christmas, slow as molasses, slow as molasses in January, slowfooted, sluggish, snoozeworthy, solemn, somber, sombre, soporific, spiritless, stately, static, steady, still, stodgy, straightforward, subglacial, sullen, sunless, sustained, tardigrade, tardy, taxing, tedious, termless, testudineous, toilsome, torpid, unbroken, unceasing, uncheerful, uncheery, uncool, unending, unhappy, uniform, uninteresting, unintermitted, uninterrupted, unmerry, unremitting, unspeedy, vanilla, vapid, verbose, wan, weaksauce, wintry, woeful, wooden, wordy

Antonyms

boring, calming, nonexciting, relaxing, restful, slow, unexciting, verbose, wearisome

Scrabble Score: 12

dreich is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL word
dreich is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
dreich is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 12

dreich is a valid Words With Friends word