dry

See also: Dry and DRY

English

Pronunciation
  • enPR: drī, IPA(key): /dɹaɪ/, /dʒɹaɪ/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Audio (AU)(file)
  • Audio(file)
  • Rhymes: -aɪ

Etymology

Adjective and noun from Middle English drye, dryge, drüȝe, from Old English drȳġe (“dry; parched, withered”), from Proto-Germanic *drūgiz, *draugiz (“dry, hard”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰerǵʰ- (“to strengthen; become hard”), from *dʰer- (“to hold, support”). 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.

Verb from Old English dryġan (“to dry”), from drȳġe (“dry”).

Alternative forms

Adjective

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

  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?
    • Addison
      The weather, we agreed, was too dry for the season.
    • Prescott
      Not a dry eye was to be seen in the assembly.
  2. Unable to produce a liquid, as water, (Petrochemistry) oil, or (farming) milk.
    This well is as dry as that cow.
  3. (masonry) Built without or lacking mortar.
    • 1937, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, p. 241:
      […] already the gate was blocked with a wall of squared stones laid dry, but very thick and very high, across the opening.
  4. (chemistry) Anhydrous: free from or lacking water in any state, regardless of the presence of other liquids.
    Dry alcohol is 200 proof.
  5. (figuratively) Athirst, eager.
    • 1610–1611, William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene ii]:
      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.
  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.
  7. (law) 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:
    • Alexander Pope
      These epistles will become less dry, more susceptible of ornament.
    1. (wine and other alcoholic beverages) Low in sugar; lacking sugar; unsweetened.
      Proper martinis are made with London dry gin and dry vermouth.
    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 lecture may require the professor to bring a watergun in order to keep the students' attention.
    4. (fine arts) Exhibiting precise execution lacking delicate contours or soft transitions of color.
  9. (sciences, somewhat derogatory) Involving computations rather than work with biological or chemical matter.
  10. (of a sound recording) Free from applied audio effects.
  11. Without a usual complement or consummation; impotently.
    never dry fire a bow; dry humping her girlfriend; making a dry run
    • 1992, Dwight R. Schuh, Bowhunter's Encyclopedia, Stackpole Books (→ISBN), page 81:
      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, […]
    • 2015, Naoko Takei Moore, Kyle Connaughton, Donabe: Classic and Modern Japanese Clay Pot Cooking, Ten Speed Press (→ISBN), page 8:
      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 […]
  12. (Christianity) Of a mass, service, or rite: involving neither consecration nor communion.

Synonyms

Antonyms
  • (free from liquid or moisture): See Thesaurus:wet
  • (abstinent from alcohol): wet
  • (of a scientist or lab: doing computation): wet

Derived terms
Terms derived from dry (adjective)

Descendants

Translations

Noun

dry (plural drys or dries)

  1. The process by which something is dried.
    This towel is still damp: I think it needs another dry.
  2. (US) A prohibitionist (of alcoholic beverages).
    • Noah S. Sweat, Jr.
      The drys were as unhappy with the second part of the speech as the wets were with the first half.
  3. (especially Australia, with "the") The dry season.
    • 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1943, Chapter VII, page 91,
      […] 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— […]
  4. (Australia) An area of waterless country.
  5. (Britain, politics) A radical or hard-line Conservative; especially, one who supported the policies of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.
    Antonym: wet

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) To lose moisture.
    The clothes dried on the line.
  2. (transitive) To remove moisture from.
    Devin dried her eyes with a handkerchief.
  3. (obsolete, intransitive) To be thirsty.
    • c. 1390, William Langland, Piers Plowman, I:
      And drynke whan þow dryest · ac do nouȝt out of resoun.

Conjugation
conjugation of dry
infinitive dry
present participle drying
past participle dried
simple progressive perfect perfect progressive
present I dry we dry I am drying we are drying I have dried we have dried I have been drying we have been drying
you dry you dry you are drying you are drying you have dried you have dried you have been drying you have been drying
he drys they dry he is drying they are drying he has dried they have dried he has been drying they have been drying
past I dried we dried I was drying we were drying I had dried we had dried I had been drying we had been drying
you dried you dried you were drying you were drying you had dried you had dried you had been drying you had been drying
he dried they dried he was drying they were drying he had dried they had dried he had been drying they had been drying
future I will dry we will dry I will be drying we will be drying I will have dried we will have dried I will have been drying we will have been drying
you will dry you will dry you will be drying you will be drying you will have dried you will have dried you will have been drying you will have been drying
he will dry they will dry he will be drying they will be drying he will have dried they will have dried he will have been drying they will have been drying
conditional I would dry we would dry I would be drying we would be drying I would have dried we would have dried I would have been drying we would have been drying
you would dry you would dry you would be drying you would be drying you would have dried you would have dried you would have been drying you would have been drying
he would dry they would dry he would be drying they would be drying he would have dried they would have dried he would have been drying they would have been drying
imperative dry

Derived terms

Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked

See also

Anagrams

Albanian

Alternative forms
  • dryn

Etymology

From Proto-Albanian *drūna, from the same root as dru. Cognate to Sanskrit द्रुणा (druṇa, “bow”), Iranian *drũna, Persian durũna‎ (“rainbow”)[1].

Noun

dry m (indefinite plural dryna, definite singular dryni, definite plural drynat)

  1. kind of lock, bolt

References
  1. Orel, Vladimir (1998), “dry”, in Albanian Etymological Dictionary, Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill, page 77

Old English

Etymology

Borrowed from Brythonic language, representing Proto-Brythonic *drüw, from Proto-Celtic *druwits (“druid”).

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /dryː/

Noun

drȳ m

  1. a sorcerer or magician
    Hi woldon forbærnan ðone dry. —Ælfric’s Homilies, volume 1. (‘They would burn the sorceror.’)

Derived terms

Descendants
  • Middle English: drigmann/drigmenn pl

Welsh

Pronunciation

Verb

dry

  1. Soft mutation of try.

Mutation
Welsh mutation
radicalsoftnasalaspirate
try dry nhry thry
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every
possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.
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