dry

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”). Verb 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.

adj

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?
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.
4. (chemistry) Anhydrous: free from or lacking water in any state, regardless of the presence of other liquids.
   Dry alcohol is 200 proof.
5. (figurative) Athirst, eager.
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
   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.
   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 water gun in order to keep the students' attention.
   4. (fine arts) Exhibiting precise execution lacking delicate contours or soft transitions of color.
9. (aviation) Not using afterburners or water injection for increased thrust.
   This fighter jet's engine has a maximum dry thrust of 200 kilonewtons.
10. (sciences, somewhat derogatory) Involving computations rather than work with biological or chemical matter.
11. (of a sound recording) 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
    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, 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, page 8
    1. Of a bite from an animal: not containing the usual venom.
13. (Christianity) Of a mass, service, or rite: involving neither consecration nor communion.

noun

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).
   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. (chiefly Australia, with "the") 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 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
5. (Australia) 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? 2018-05-02, 5:56pm, pyatts, Tripadvisor
   Black Douglas Blended Scotch and Dry Case 24 x 375mL Cans (Title). 2021-07-26, cub_beer, eBay
7. (Britain, UK politics) A radical or hard-line Conservative; especially, one who supported the policies of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

verb

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. (transitive, figurative) To exhaust; to cause to run dry.
4. (intransitive, informal) For an actor to forget his or her 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