A drought is a long spell of unusually low rainfall that causes water shortages, while a famine is a severe, widespread shortage of food that often causes mass starvation. The two are closely linked but not the same thing: a drought is a weather event, and a famine is a humanitarian crisis that a bad drought can help bring about. As one dictionary example puts it, decades of drought led to a devastating famine in the region.
The core difference
A drought is a lack of rain causing water shortage, while a famine is a severe shortage of food, and a long drought is one common cause of a famine.
- drought — a long period of unusually low rainfall causing water shortages: the drought left the reservoir at a record low.
- famine — a severe, widespread shortage of food, often causing mass starvation: decades of drought led to a devastating famine in the region.
How to tell them apart
A simple way to keep them straight is to think of drought as the cause and famine as one possible effect. Drought is fundamentally about weather and water, rooted in the same word family as “dry.” Famine is fundamentally about hunger, related to the Latin word for hunger, fames. A drought does not automatically become a famine, since aid, stored food, or irrigation can prevent food shortages even during dry years.
The words get mixed up in news coverage, where a drought is sometimes reported as if it were the same crisis as the famine it triggers. It also helps to remember that “drought” has a lighter, figurative use, such as a sports team's long run without a win, a sense famine does not really share.
