Definition of "drowse"

Under the aching noonday glare, when the green things drooped and the birds withdrew to the depths of the forest, and all nature drowsed, his great "Ha! ha!" and "Ho! ho!" rose up to the sky and challenged the sun.

1902, Jack London, Moon-Face

In August the cicadas chorused, and the dusty olive trees drowsed in the sun.

1973 July, Melville Bell Grosvenor, “Homeward with Ulysses”, in National Geographic, volume 144, number 1

[…] the wary tadpole returned from exile, the bullfrog resumed his ancient song, the tranquil turtle sunned his back upon bank and log and drowsed his grateful life away as in the old sweet days of yore.

1873, Mark Twain, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1915 republication), page 285

Congreve held fast to the Greek poets, but otherwise seems to have drowsed his way through Trinity studies.

1966, John Cunyus Hodges, William Congreve, the man: a biography from new sources, page 25

Ida had kept him awake while he drowsed his way up the old King's Trace in eastern Missouri, feverish and weak.

2002, Marsha Ward, The Man from Shenandoah, page 55

They were led into a large, attractive room with twin massage beds, and welcomed by their masseurs—in Balinese tradition, he had a male masseur, Anna a female. He drowsed his way through the first half hour of the treatment, […]

2008, Sarah Mayberry, “Cruise Control”, in Best of Makeovers Bundle, page 209

His chief objection is to the expression more wakeful than to drowse

1667, John Milton, “Book XI”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […]; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873,

The warmth drowsed them and replaced contentnment.

1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1965, page 26