diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 362aee25f5a..141745caa0b 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -23,6 +23,10 @@
 - [#8601](https://github.com/influxdata/influxdb/pull/8601): Fixed time boundaries for continuous queries with time zones.
 - [#8097](https://github.com/influxdata/influxdb/pull/8097): Return query parsing errors in CSV formats.
 
+## v1.3.2 [unreleased]
+
+- [#8630](https://github.com/influxdata/influxdb/pull/8630): Prevent excessive memory usage when dropping series
+
 ## v1.3.1 [unreleased]
 
 ### Bugfixes
diff --git a/tsdb/store.go b/tsdb/store.go
index 2cc51ac2cd0..4a6b414b45e 100644
--- a/tsdb/store.go
+++ b/tsdb/store.go
@@ -570,7 +570,13 @@ func (s *Store) DeleteMeasurement(database, name string) error {
 	shards := s.filterShards(byDatabase(database))
 	s.mu.RUnlock()
 
+	// Limit to 1 delete for each shard since expanding the measurement into the list
+	// of series keys can be very memory intensive if run concurrently.
+	limit := limiter.NewFixed(1)
 	return s.walkShards(shards, func(sh *Shard) error {
+		limit.Take()
+		defer limit.Release()
+
 		if err := sh.DeleteMeasurement([]byte(name)); err != nil {
 			return err
 		}
@@ -834,6 +840,10 @@ func (s *Store) DeleteSeries(database string, sources []influxql.Source, conditi
 	s.mu.RLock()
 	defer s.mu.RUnlock()
 
+	// Limit to 1 delete for each shard since expanding the measurement into the list
+	// of series keys can be very memory intensive if run concurrently.
+	limit := limiter.NewFixed(1)
+
 	return s.walkShards(shards, func(sh *Shard) error {
 		// Determine list of measurements from sources.
 		// Use all measurements if no FROM clause was provided.
@@ -852,6 +862,9 @@ func (s *Store) DeleteSeries(database string, sources []influxql.Source, conditi
 		}
 		sort.Strings(names)
 
+		limit.Take()
+		defer limit.Release()
+
 		// Find matching series keys for each measurement.
 		var keys [][]byte
 		for _, name := range names {