# dry
## English
### Alternative forms

* drie (obsolete)

### Etymology

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”).

### Pronunciation

* enPR: drī, IPA: /dɹaɪ/, [d͡ʒɹaɪ̯], [d̠͡ɹ̠˔aɪ̯], [d̠͡ɹ̠˔ʷaɪ̯]
* Audio (US):(file)
* Audio (General Australian):(file)
* Audio:(file)
* Rhymes: -aɪ

### Adjective

dry (comparative drier or dryer, superlative driest or dryest)
* 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?
** 1716 March 16 (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 weather, […] we […] both agreed, was too dry for the season.
** 1850, Harper's Magazine, volume 1, page 449: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.
** 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:Not a dry eye was to be seen in the assembly.
** 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: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.
* Unable to produce a liquid, as water, (petrochemistry) oil, or (agriculture) milk.
    Hyponym: non-milch
    This well is as dry as that cow.
* (masonry) Built without or lacking mortar.
** 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:[A]lready the gate was blocked with a wall of squared stones laid dry, but very thick and very high, across the opening.
* (chemistry) Anhydrous: free from or lacking water in any state, regardless of the presence of other liquids.
    Dry alcohol is 200 proof.
* (figurative) Athirst, eager.
** 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]: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.
* 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.
** 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]: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 […]
* (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.
* Free from or lacking embellishment or sweetness, particularly:
** 1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], (please specify |epistle=I to IV), London: Printed for J[ohn] Wilford, […], →OCLC:These epistles will become less dry, more susceptible of ornament.
** (wine and other alcoholic beverages, ginger ale) Low in sugar; lacking sugar; unsweetened.
    Proper martinis are made with London dry gin and dry vermouth.
*** 1983, Lorenzo Semple Jr., Never Say Never Again: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.
** (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.
** Lacking interest, boring.
    A dry lecture may require the professor to bring a water gun in order to keep the students' attention.
*** 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]: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 […]
*** 1907, Ronald M. Burrows, The Discoveries In Crete, page 2:Mr. Evans naturally does not see things in a dry light. He has the dramatic instinct, and impresses it on all he touches.
*** 2012, Winston S. Churchill, Martin Gilbert, Churchill: The Power of Words, page 14: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.
** (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!.
** (fine arts) Exhibiting precise execution lacking delicate contours or soft transitions of color.
* (aviation) Not using afterburners or water injection for increased thrust.
    This fighter jet's engine has a maximum dry thrust of 200 kilonewtons.
* (sciences, somewhat derogatory) Involving computations rather than work with biological or chemical matter.
* (of a sound recording) Free from applied audio effects (especially reverb).
* Without a usual complement or consummation; impotent.
    never dry fire a bow
    dry humping her girlfriend
    making a dry run
** 1958, Gordon Grimley, The Book of the Bow, page 167: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.
** 1992, Pennsylvania Game News, volume 63, page 57:[…] most like "dry firing," or a dry release, wherein the string meets no resistance.
** 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 […]
** Of a bite from an animal: not containing the usual venom.
* (Christianity) Of a mass, service, or rite: involving neither consecration nor communion.
* (Malaysia, Singapore, of noodles) Mixed with sauce and not served in a soup.
** 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: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.

#### Synonyms

* (free from liquid or moisture): See Thesaurus:dry

#### Antonyms

* (antonym(s) of “free from liquid or moisture”): See Thesaurus:wet
* (antonym(s) of “abstinent from or banning alcohol”): wet
* (antonym(s) of “not using afterburners or water injection”): wet
* (antonym(s) of “of a scientist or lab: doing computation”): wet

#### Derived terms

* active dry yeast
* adry
* air-dry
* bleed 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
* dry bar
* dry bay
* dry beat
* dry behind the ears
* dry beriberi
* dry biscuit
* dry bite
* dry blower
* dry bob
* dry bone
* dry bread
* drybrush
* dry brushing
* dry bulb temperature
* dry-bulb temperature
* dry cell
* dry cell battery
* Dry Chaco
* dry chemical
* dry clean
* dry-clean
* dry-cleaner
* dry cleaner
* dry cleaner's
* dry cleaning
* dry-cleaning
* dry closet
* dry cough
* dry cupping
* dry-cure
* dry-cured
* dry distillation
* drydock
* dry-dock
* dry dock
* dry drunk
* dry-erase
* dry erase
* dry eye
* dry-eyed
* dry eye syndrome
* dryfat
* dry film thickness
* dry-fire
* dry fire
* dry-fisted
* dry fly
* dry fog
* dry-foot
* Dry Fork
* dry ginger
* dry goods
* dry guillotine
* dry-gulch
* drygulcher
* dry-handed
* dry haze
* dry heater
* dry-heave
* dry hire
* dry hole
* dry hop
* dry-hopped
* dry hopping
* dry humor
* dry humour
* dry hump
* dry hydrant
* dry ice
* dryish
* dry jogger
* dry joggers
* dry-lab
* dry lab
* dry-labber
* dry-labbing
* dry labbing
* dry lake
* dry land
* dryland
* dry light
* dry lightning
* dryline
* dry line
* dry lodging
* dry lunch
* dryly
* dry marker
* dry market
* dry martini
* dry mass
* dry matter
* dry measure
* dry meter
* dry mouth
* dry needling
* dryness
* dry-nurse
* dry nurse
* dry off
* dry orgasm
* dry pail
* dry pailing
* drypainting
* dry plate
* dry point
* drypoint
* dry pond
* dry port
* dry pot
* dry powder
* dry powder inhaler
* dry reach
* dry rent
* dry riser
* dry rot
* dry-rot
* dry-run
* dry run
* dry-salt
* drysalter
* dry sausage
* dryscape
* dry season
* dry sex
* dry shaving
* dry-shod
* dry shower
* dryside
* dry sink
* dry snitch
* dry socket
* dry spell
* dry sprinkler
* drystack
* dry steering
* dry-stone
* drystone
* dry stone
* dry stone wall
* dry stove
* drysuit
* dry sump
* dryth
* dry-tool
* dry transfer
* Dry Valley
* dry valley
* drywall
* dry wall
* dry wash
* dry weight
* dry well
* drywipe
* feet dry
* fluff-dry
* freeze-dry
* hang out to dry
* high and dry
* home and dry
* ink isn't dry on
* in the green tree … in the dry
* keep one's powder dry
* keep the powder dry
* leave someone high and dry
* line-dry
* medium dry
* Mexican dry soup
* off-dry
* on the dry
* roughdry
* run like a dry creek
* self-dry
* semidry
* smoke-dry
* spin-dry
* spray-dry
* stay-dry
* suck dry
* sun-dry
* superdry
* touch-dry
* tumble dry
* tumble-dry
* ultradry
* undry
* watch paint dry
* wet-and-dry-bulb hygrometer
* 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

#### Descendants

* Sranan Tongo: drei

#### Translations
### Noun

dry (plural drys or dries)
* The process by which something is dried.
    This towel is still damp: I think it needs another dry.
* (US) A prohibitionist (of alcoholic beverages).
** c. 1952-1996, Noah S. Sweat, quoted in 1996
    The drys were as unhappy with the second part of the speech as the wets were with the first half.
* An area with little or no rain, or sheltered from it.
    Come under my umbrella and keep in the dry.
* (chiefly Australia, with "the") The dry season.
** 1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter VII, in Capricornia‎, New York: D. Appleton-Century, published 1943, 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— […]
** 2006, Alexis Wright, Carpentaria, Giramondo, published 2012, page 169:[T]he spring-fed river systems. Not the useless little tributary jutting off into a mud hole at the end of the Dry.
* (Australia) An area of waterless country.
* Unsweetened ginger ale; dry ginger.
** 1968, Bee Gees, “Indian Gin And Whiskey Dry”, in Idea(album)‎:All day, all night you feel as if the Earth could fly/Three more all for fine Indian Gin and whiskey dry.
** 2018 May 2, pyatts, Tripadvisor‎:Can you buy dry ginger in Croatia? If not what is an alternative?
** 2021 July 26, cub_beer, “Archived copy”, in eBay‎, archived from the original on 31 July 2021:Black Douglas Blended Scotch and Dry Case 24 x 375mL Cans (Title).
* (British, UK 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)
* (intransitive) To lose moisture.
    Synonyms: dehydrate, desiccate
    Hyponyms: (loosely synonymous) dry out, dry up
    The clothes dried on the line.
    The fruit dried in the dehydrator.
* (transitive) To remove moisture from.
    Synonyms: dehydrate, desiccate
    Hyponyms: (loosely synonymous) dry out, dry up
    Devin dried her eyes with a handkerchief.
    We dried the fruit in the dehydrator.
* (transitive, figurative) To exhaust; to cause to run dry.
    Synonym: dry up
* (intransitive, informal, theater) For an actor to forget their lines while performing.
** 1986, Richard Collier, Make-believe: The Magic of International Theatre, page 146:An actor never stumbled over his lines, he “fluffed”; he never forgot his dialogue, he “dried.”
** 2006, Michael Dobson, Performing Shakespeare's Tragedies Today, page 126:In one of the previews I dried (lost my lines) in my opening scene, 1.4, and had to improvise.
** 2024 June 1, John Phipps, “The lamentable true history of the Red Hamlet”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 18: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.

#### Conjugation

$^†$ Archaic or obsolete.

#### Derived terms

* 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
* wind-dry

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

### See also

* desiccant
* desiccate
* desiccation

### Anagrams

* YRD

## Albanian
### Alternative forms

* dryn

### Etymology

From Proto-Albanian *drūna, from the same root as dru. Cognate to Sanskrit द्रुणा (druṇā, “bow”), Persian درونه (“rainbow”).

### Noun

dry m (plural dryna, definite dryni, definite plural drynat)
* lock, bolt

#### Related terms

* dru
* drushtë
* ndryj

### References

* ↑ Orel, Vladimir E. (1998) “dry”, in Albanian Etymological Dictionary, Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill, →ISBN, page 77

## Chinese
### Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “From English dry "lacking interest, boring" or by some interpretation of wet "to go clubbing"?”)

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /t͡ʃɹaːi̯⁵⁵/

### Adjective

dry (Hong Kong Cantonese)
* (of a person) lacking sex or romance

## Middle English
### Adjective

dry
* Alternative form of drye

## Old English
### Etymology

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

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /dryː/

### Noun

drȳ m (nominative plural drȳas)
* wizard, sorcerer
** late 10th century, Ælfric, "Passion of St. Julian and his wife Basilissa"
    Gehelp urum godum and hat to þe gefeccan þisne dry Iulianum þe ure goda anlicnysse mid ealle to-brytte...Help our gods, and command men to bring thee this sorcerer Julianus, who hath utterly broken the images of our gods,...
** Hīe woldon forbærnan þone drȳ. ― They wanted to burn the wizard. (Ælfric’s Homilies, volume 1.)

#### Declension

Strong a-stem:

#### Derived terms

* drȳcræft
* drȳeċġe

#### Descendants

* Middle English: dri, driȝ, dry
** ⇒ Middle English: driȝmann, driȝmenn pl

## Romanian
### Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English dry.

### Adjective

dry m or f or n (indeclinable)
* dry (about drinks)

#### Declension
## Welsh
### Pronunciation

* (North Wales) IPA: /drɨː/
* (South Wales) IPA: /driː/

### Verb

dry
* Soft mutation of try.

### Mutation

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Welsh. All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.