Meaning

noun very light rain; stronger than mist but less than a shower

verb rain lightly

verb moisten with fine drops

originPerhaps a back-formation from dryseling, a dissimilated variant of Middle English drysning (“a falling of dew”), from Old English drysnan (“to extinguish”), related to Old English drēosan (“to fall, to decline”), making it cognate to modern English droze and drowse. Compare also dialectal Swedish drösla.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0