dry up
English
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Verb
[edit]dry up (third-person singular simple present dries up, present participle drying up, simple past and past participle dried up)
- (intransitive) To become dry (often of weather); to lose water.
- (transitive) To cause to become dry.
- (intransitive, transitive, intransitive) To manually dry dishes and utensils.
- (transitive) To deprive someone of (something vital).
- (intransitive) To gradually decrease and eventually cease.
- Synonym: wither away
- When our money dried up, we had to get proper jobs.
- After the stock market crash, the easy financing dried up.
- 2008, Adele, First Love:
- This love has dried up and stayed behind
- (intransitive) To stop talking because one has forgotten what one was going to say.
- (of an actor) To forget one's lines.
- (1930s US slang) To stop talking or drop a topic.
- Synonyms: shut up, clam up; see also Thesaurus:be quiet
- Oh, dry up, you old fuddy-duddy!
Usage notes
[edit]- To dry out often means to lose excess or extraneous water, whereas to dry up often means to lose constituent water to a high degree (which is also what desiccate often means).
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]to become dry
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to cause to become dry
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