(Exodus 15:4; Amos 8:8; Hebrews 11:29). Drowning was a mode of capital punishment in use among the Syrians, and was known to the Jews in the time of our Lord. To this he alludes in Matthew 18:6.

Noah Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language

1. (v. i.) To be suffocated in water or other fluid; to perish in water.

2. (v. t.) To overwhelm in water; to submerge; to inundate.

3. (v. t.) To deprive of life by immersion in water or other liquid.

4. (v. t.) To overpower; to overcome; to extinguish; -- said especially of sound.