druthers

druthers
plural noun
druth·;ers ;dr;-t;h;rz
Synonyms of druthers
dialect
: free choice : preference —used especially in the phrase if one had one's druthers


Did you know?
Nowadays, you’re much more likely to encounter the plural noun druthers than its singular forebear, but that wasn’t always the case. Druther, an alteration of “would rather” in some U.S. English dialects, first appeared in writing in the late 1800s. “Any way you druther have it, that is the way I druther have it,” says Huck to Tom in Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, Detective (a sequel to the more famous Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which also included the word druther). This example of metanalysis (the shifting of a sound from one element of a phrase to another) had been around for some time in everyday speech when Twain put those words in Huck’s mouth. By then, in fact, druthers had also become a plural noun, so Tom could reply, “There ain’t any druthers about it, Huck Finn; nobody said anything about druthers,” though druthers didn’t overtake druther in popularity (at least in print) until the mid-1900s.

Synonyms
alternative
choice
discretion
election
liberty
option
pick
preference
selection
volition
way
Examples of druthers in a Sentence
If I had my druthers, I'd stay home tonight
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More
Given my druthers, he'd have been left out of this.
—Phil Plait, Discover Magazine, 17 Nov. 2010
If Grand Seiko’s fans had their druthers, this entire best-of list would be devoted to the brand’s models.
—Victoria Gomelsky, Robb Report, 17 Dec. 2022

Word History
Etymology
druther, alteration of would rather

First Known Use
1870, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of druthers was in 1870
See more words from the same year