parching

English

Etymology

From parch +‎ -ing.

Adjective

parching (comparative more parching, superlative most parching)

1. Causing something or someone to parch; extremely drying. [from 16th c.]
   • a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Summer”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC:

     Who can unpitying see the flowery race, / Shed by the morn, their new-flush'd bloom resign, / Before the parching beam?

   • 1892, James Yoxall, chapter 5, in The Lonely Pyramid:

     The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom. […] Drifts of yellow vapour, fiery, parching, stinging, filled the air.

   • 1888, J. F. C. Hecker, “Causes.-Spread.”, in B. G. Babington, transl., The Black Death and the Dancing Mania‎^[1], →OCLC, page 24:

     The series of these great events began in the year 1333, fifteen years before the plague broke out in Europe: they first appeared in China. Here a parching drought, accompanied by famine, commenced in the tract of country watered by the rivers Kiang and Hoai.

   • [1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC:

     I began also to feel very hungry, as not having eaten for twenty-four hours; and worse than that, there was a parching thirst and dryness in my throat, and nothing with which to quench it.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:parching.
2. Very thirsty; parched. [from 17th c.]
   • 1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:

     Proceed to nearest canteen and there annex liquor stores. March! Tramp, tramp, tramp the boys are […] parching.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:parching.

Verb

parching

1. present participle and gerund of parch

Noun

parching (plural parchings)

1. The process of parching or roasting something, such as corn.
   • 1917, Studies in the Social Sciences, number 9, page 20:

     I have already told how we parched sunflower seed; and that I used two or three double-handfuls of seed to a parching. I used two parchings of sunflower seed for one mess of four-vegetables-mixed.

2. The condition of being parched; absolute dryness.
   • 1797, Icelandic Poetry: Or The Edda of Sæmund, page 95:

     Squalid youths with ghastly grin,
     In hollow bitter roots shall bring,
     Urine of the unsav'ry goat,
     To quell the parchings of thy throat.