dry

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.

2025 February 24 (Gregorian calendar), Joseph Addison, “The Free-holder: No. 22. Monday, March 5. [1716.]”, in The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq; […], volume IV, London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], published 1721, →OCLC:

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, radiated yellow flower, of the character of an aster; a centaurea of a light purple, handsomer than any English one; a thistle in the dryest places, resembling an eryngo, with a thick, bushy top; mulleins, yellow and white; the wild mignonnette, and the white convolvulus; and clematis festooning the bushes, recalled the flowery fields and lanes of England, and yet told us that we were not there.

1850, Harper's Magazine, volume 1, page 449:

Not a dry eye was to be seen in the assembly.

1855–1858, William H[ickling] Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Boston, Mass.: Phillips, Sampson, and Company, →OCLC:

It is one of the first towns in the United States to purposely stall growth for want of water in a new era of megadroughts. But it could be a harbinger of things to come in a hotter, drier West.

2021 July 20, Jack Healy, Sophie Kasakove, “A Drought So Dire That a Utah Town Pulled the Plug on Growth”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

This well is as dry as that cow.

en:unable to produce a liquid, e.g., water, oil, milk

Unable to produce a liquid, as water, (petrochemistry) oil, or (agriculture) milk.

[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 Hobbit: Or There and Back Again, revised edition, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, published February 1966 (August 1967 printing), →OCLC, page 247:

(masonry) Built without or lacking mortar.

Dry alcohol is 200 proof.

(chemistry) Anhydrous: free from or lacking water in any state, regardless of the presence of other liquids.

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 moſt ignoble ſtooping.

1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

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 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene v]:

Free from or lacking alcohol or alcoholic beverages.

You'll have to drive out of this dry county to find any liquor.

(law) Describing an area where sales of alcoholic or strong alcoholic beverages are banned.

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:

Free from or lacking embellishment or sweetness, particularly:

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

Free from or lacking embellishment or sweetness

Low in sugar; lacking sugar; unsweetened.

wine and other alcoholic beverages; ginger ale; wine and other alcoholic beverages; ginger ale

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

(humor) Amusing without showing amusement.

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 […]

Mr. Evans naturally does not see things in a dry light. He has the dramatic instinct, and impresses it on all he touches.

1907, Ronald M. Burrows, The Discoveries In Crete, page 2:

But there we were given only the dullest, driest, pemmicanised forms like The Student's Hume, Once I had a hundred pages of The Student's Hume as a holiday task.

2012, Winston S. Churchill, Martin Gilbert, Churchill: The Power of Words, page 14:

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!.

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

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

These epistles will become less dry, more susceptible of ornament.

1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], (please specify |epistle=I to IV), London: Printed for J[ohn] Wilford, […], →OCLC:

This fighter jet's engine has a maximum dry thrust of 200 kilonewtons.

(aviation) Not using afterburners or water injection for increased thrust.

(sciences, somewhat derogatory) Involving computations rather than work with biological or chemical matter.

(of a sound recording) Free from applied audio effects (especially reverb).

Free from applied audio effects (especially reverb).

never dry fire a bow

dry humping her girlfriend

making a dry run

A loose nocking point is equally dangerous since it may result in what is known as a 'dry release' when the arrow merely falls from a string a few feet away as the bow is shot. This may distort or weaken the bow.

1958, Gordon Grimley, The Book of the Bow, page 167:

[…] most like "dry firing," or a dry release, wherein the string meets no resistance.

1992, Pennsylvania Game News, volume 63, page 57:

When you shoot a bow, the arrow absorbs a high percentage of the energy released by the limbs. If you dry fire a bow (shoot it with no arrow on the string), the bow itself absorbs all the energy, […]

1992, Dwight R. Schuh, Bowhunter's Encyclopedia, Stackpole Books, →ISBN, page 81:

Because some recipes require specific techniques such as high-intensity dry heating (heating while the pot is empty or heating with little or no fluid inside), read the manufacturer's instructions to ensure your vessel can handle such cooking […]

2015, Naoko Takei Moore, Kyle Connaughton, Donabe: Classic and Modern Japanese Clay Pot Cooking, Ten Speed Press, →ISBN, page 8:

Without a usual complement or consummation; impotent.

Of a bite from an animal: not containing the usual venom.

(Christianity) Of a mass, service, or rite: involving neither consecration nor communion.

I would have mee tai mak (short, thick noodles), either in soup or dry, with fishballs, pork balls or yong tau foo at this noodles shop near my house.

2006 July 30, Teo Pau Lin, quoting Wong Hon Mun, The Straits Times, quoted in Jack Tsen-Ta Lee, A Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English, Singapore: Singapore Press Holdings Limited, page L28:

(Malaysia, Singapore, of noodles) Mixed with sauce and not served in a soup.

Mixed with sauce and not served in a soup.

en-adj

dry (comparative drier or dryer, superlative driest or dryest)

drier (comparative)
dryer (comparative)
driest (superlative)
dryest (superlative)

wet

antonym(s) of “abstinent from or banning alcohol”

wet

antonym(s) of “not using afterburners or water injection”

wet

of a scientist or lab: doing computation

you don't miss the water till the well runs dry

you never miss the water till the well runs dry

you never miss the water until the well runs dry

Sranan Tongo: drei

[d̠͡ɹ̠˔ʷaɪ̯]

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”), Swedish dryg (“lasting, hard”), Icelandic drjúgur (“ample, long”), Latin firmus (“strong, firm, stable, durable”). See also drought, drain, dree.

inh

Old English drȳġe (“dry; parched, withered”)

inh

Proto-Germanic *drūgiz (“hard, desiccated, dry”)

der

Proto-Indo-European *dʰerǵʰ- (“strong, hard, solid”)

cog

Latin firmus (“strong, firm, stable, durable”)


dry

This towel is still damp: I think it needs another dry.

The process by which something is dried.

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

(US) A prohibitionist (of alcoholic beverages).

Come under my umbrella and keep in the dry.

An area with little or no rain, or sheltered from it.

[…] 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 flame— […]

1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter VII, in Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, published 1943, page 91:

[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:

(chiefly Australia, with "the") The dry season.

(Australia) An area of waterless country.

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?

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 2021-07-31:

(British, UK politics) A radical or hard-line Conservative; especially, one who supported the policies of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

[d̠͡ɹ̠˔ʷaɪ̯]


dry

The clothes dried on the line.

The fruit dried in the dehydrator.

Devin dried her eyes with a handkerchief.

We dried the fruit in the dehydrator.

(transitive, figurative) To exhaust; to cause to run dry.

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.

2024 June 1, John Phipps, “The lamentable true history of the Red Hamlet”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 18:

(intransitive, informal, theater) For an actor to forget their lines while performing.

en-verb

dry (third-person singular simple present dries, present participle drying, simple past and past participle dried)

dries (present singular third-person)
drying (participle present)
dried (participle past)
dried (past)
dry (infinitive)

乾 /干

preceded by a character indicating the method

[d̠͡ɹ̠˔ʷaɪ̯]