dry

Free from or lacking moisture.

Adjective

  1. Free from or lacking moisture.
    • This towel's dry. Could you wet it and cover the chicken so it doesn't go dry as it cooks?
    • The weather, […] we […] both agreed, was too dry for the season. - 2026 June 16 (Gregorian calendar), Joseph Addison, “The Free-holder: No. 22. Tuesday, March 5. [1716.]”, in The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph...
    • The marjorum stood in ruddy and fragrant masses; harebells and campanulas of several kinds, that are cultivated in our gardens, with bells large and clear; crimson pinks; the Michaelmas daisy; a plant with a thin,...
  2. Unable to produce a liquid, as water, (petrochemistry) oil, or (agriculture) milk.
    • This well is as dry as that cow.
  3. Built without or lacking mortar.
    • [A]lready the gate was blocked with a wall of squared stones laid dry, but very thick and very high, across the opening. - 1937 September 21, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “The Gathering of the Clouds”, in The...
  4. Anhydrous: free from or lacking water in any state, regardless of the presence of other liquids.
    • Dry alcohol is 200 proof.
  5. Athirst, eager.
    • Prospero:[…]Confederates / (ſo drie he was for Sway) with King of Naples / To giue him Annuall tribute, doe him homage / Subiect his Coronet, to his Crowne and bend / The Dukedom yet vnbow'd (alas poore Millaine) / To...
  6. Free from or lacking alcohol or alcoholic beverages.
    • Of course it's a dry house. He was an alcoholic but he's been dry for almost a year now.
    • Ol. Go too, y'are a dry foole: Ile no more of you: besides you grow dis-honest. Clo. Two faults Madona, that drinke & good counsell wil amend: for giue the dry foole drink, then is the foole not dry[…] - c. 1601–1602...
  7. Describing an area where sales of alcoholic or strong alcoholic beverages are banned.
    • You'll have to drive out of this dry county to find any liquor.
  8. Free from or lacking embellishment or sweetness, particularly:
    • These epistles will become less dry, more susceptible of ornament. - 1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], (please specify |epistle=I to IV), London: […] J[ohn] Wilford, […], →OCLC:

    1. (wine and other alcoholic beverages, ginger ale) Low in sugar; lacking sugar; unsweetened.

      • Proper martinis are made with London dry gin and dry vermouth.
      • Fatima Blush: Oh, how reckless of me. I made you all wet. James Bond: Yes, but my martini is still dry. My name is James. - 1983, Lorenzo Semple Jr., Never Say Never Again:

    2. (humor) Amusing without showing amusement.

      • Steven Wright has a deadpan delivery, Norm Macdonald has a dry sense of humor, and Oscar Wilde had a dry wit.

    3. Lacking interest, boring.

      • a dry academic discipline turned into a living subject
      • A dry lecture may require the professor to bring a water gun in order to keep the students' attention.
      • Ol. Go too, y'are a dry foole: Ile no more of you: besides you grow dis-honest. Clo. Two faults Madona, that drinke & good counsell wil amend: for giue the dry foole drink, then is the foole not dry […] - c. 1601–1602...

      Antonyms: live living

    4. (poker) Of a board or flop: Not permitting the creation of many or of strong hands.

      • Jake was hoping to make something good out of his suited 7-8 hand, but the flop came out dry: 2-5-10 rainbow, and all of the wrong suit!.

    5. (fine arts) Exhibiting precise execution lacking delicate contours or soft transitions of color.

  9. Not using afterburners or water injection for increased thrust.
    • This fighter jet's engine has a maximum dry thrust of 200 kilonewtons.
  10. Involving computations rather than work with biological or chemical matter.
  11. Free from applied audio effects (especially reverb).
  12. Without a usual complement or consummation; impotent.
    • never dry fire a bow
    • dry humping her girlfriend
    • making a dry run

Origin

Adjective and noun from Middle English drye, dryge, drüȝe, from Old English drȳġe (“dry; parched, withered”), from Proto-West Germanic *drūgī, *draugī, from Proto-Germanic *drūgiz, *draugiz (“dry, hard”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰerǵʰ- (“to strengthen; become hard”), from *dʰer- (“to hold, support”). The verb derives from Middle English drien, from Old English drȳġan (“to dry”), from Proto-West Germanic *drūgijan, from Proto-Germanic *drūgiz (“hard, desiccated, dry”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰerǵʰ- (“strong, hard, solid”). cognates and related terms Cognate with Scots dry, drey (“dry”), North Frisian drüg, driig, Saterland Frisian druuch (“dry”), West Frisian droech (“dry”), Dutch droog (“dry”), Low German dröög (“dry”), German dröge (“dull”), Icelandic draugur (“a dry log”). Related also to German trocken (“dry”), West Frisian drege (“long-lasting”), Danish drøj (“tough”),...

Forms

drier dryer driest dryest drie

Synonyms

sober anhydrous arid bone dry droughty dry dry as a bone exsuccous parched sare sear sere unmoist waterless

Antonyms

wet

Hyponyms

chappy crisp dehydrated desiccated dry as a dead dingo's donger dry as a nun's nasty secco torrid windburned

Derived

active dry yeast adry air-dry airdry air dry bleed dry blow-dry blow dry bone dry bone-dry damp-dry drily driness drip-dry dry abscess dry-aged dry agent dry as a bone dry as a dead dingo's donga dry as a dead dingo's donger dry as a nun's cunt dry as a nun's nasty dry as dust drybag

Noun

  1. The process by which something is dried.
    • This towel is still damp: I think it needs another dry.
  2. A prohibitionist (of alcoholic beverages).
    • The drys were as unhappy with the second part of the speech as the wets were with the first half. - c. 1952-1996, Noah S. Sweat, quoted in 1996
  3. An area with little or no rain, or sheltered from it.
    • Come under my umbrella and keep in the dry.
  4. The dry season.
    • […] one was sodden to the bone and mildewed to the marrow and moved to pray […] for that which formerly he had cursed—the Dry! the good old Dry—when the grasses yellowed, browned, dried to tinder, burst into spontaneous...
    • [T]he spring-fed river systems. Not the useless little tributary jutting off into a mud hole at the end of the Dry. - 2006, Alexis Wright, Carpentaria, Giramondo, published 2012, page 169:
  5. An area of waterless country.
  6. Unsweetened ginger ale; dry ginger.
    • All day, all night you feel as if the Earth could fly/Three more all for fine Indian Gin and whiskey dry. - 1968, Bee Gees, “Indian Gin And Whiskey Dry”, in Idea(album):
    • Can you buy dry ginger in Croatia? If not what is an alternative? - 2018 May 2, pyatts, Tripadvisor:
    • Black Douglas Blended Scotch and Dry Case 24 x 375mL Cans (Title). - 2021 July 26, cub_beer, “Archived copy”, in eBay, archived from the original on 31 Jul 2021:
  7. A radical or hard-line Conservative; especially, one who supported the policies of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

    Antonyms: wet

Forms

drys dries drie

Verb

  1. To lose moisture.
    • The clothes dried on the line.
    • The fruit dried in the dehydrator.

    Synonyms: dehydrate desiccate

  2. To remove moisture from.
    • Devin dried her eyes with a handkerchief.
    • We dried the fruit in the dehydrator.

    Synonyms: dehydrate desiccate

  3. To exhaust; to cause to run dry.

    Synonyms: dry up

  4. For an actor to forget their lines while performing.
    • An actor never stumbled over his lines, he “fluffed”; he never forgot his dialogue, he “dried.” - 1986, Richard Collier, Make-believe: The Magic of International Theatre, page 146:
    • In one of the previews I dried (lost my lines) in my opening scene, 1.4, and had to improvise. - 2006, Michael Dobson, Performing Shakespeare's Tragedies Today, page 126:
    • Blinded to the astonishment of a thousand spectators by the force of the footlights, [Derek] Jacobi realised he'd dried. Dried completely. It wasn't like he'd forgotten the words. It was like he'd never known them. -...

Forms

dries drying dried no-table-tags glossary dry driest drieth - drie

Related

desiccant desiccate desiccation

Derived

before the ink had time to dry before the ink was dry drier dryable drydown dryer drying agent drying height drying machine drying oil drying time drying-up dry one's eyes dry out dry up fordry freeze-drying nondrying overdry quick-drying redry self-drying undry updry