different between dreary vs dry

English

Etymology

From Middle English drery, from Old English dr?ori? (“sad”), from Proto-Germanic *dreuzagaz (“bloody”), from Proto-Indo-European *d?rews- (“to break, break off, crumble”), equivalent to drear +? -y. Cognate with Dutch treurig (“sad, gloomy”), Low German trurig (“sad”), German traurig (“sad, sorrowful, mournful”), Old Norse dreyrigr (“bloody”). Related to Old English dr?or (“blood, falling blood”), Old English drysmian (“to become gloomy”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?d???i/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?d????i/
• Rhymes: -???i, -??i

Adjective

dreary (comparative drearier or more dreary, superlative dreariest or most dreary)

1. Drab; dark, colorless, or cheerless.

   It had rained for three days straight, and the dreary weather dragged the townspeople's spirits down.

   Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary...
2. (obsolete) Grievous, dire; appalling.

Derived terms

• drear
• drearihead
• drearihood
• drearily
• dreariment
• dreariness
• drearisome

Translations

Anagrams

• Ardrey, Drayer, yarder, yarred

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: dr?, IPA^(key): /d?a?/, /d??a?/
• Rhymes: -a?

Etymology

Adjective and noun from Middle English drye, dryge, drü?e, from Old English dr??e (“dry; parched, withered”), from Proto-Germanic *dr?giz, *draugiz (“dry, hard”), from Proto-Indo-European *d?er??- (“to strengthen; become hard”), from *d?er- (“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 Middle English drien, from Old English dr??an (“to dry”), from Proto-West Germanic *dr?gijan, from Proto-Germanic *dr?giz (“hard, desiccated, dry”), from Proto-Indo-European *d?er??- (“strong, hard, solid”).

Alternative forms

• drie (obsolete)

Adjective

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

1. Free from or lacking moisture.
   • 1856-1858, William H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip II

     Not a dry eye was to be seen in the assembly.

2. Unable to produce a liquid, as water, (petrochemistry) oil, or (farming) milk.

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.

5. (figuratively) Athirst, eager.
6. Free from or lacking alcohol or alcoholic beverages.
   • c. 1601, William Shakespeare, Twelfe Night, or What You Will, 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...

7. (law) Describing an area where sales of alcoholic or strong alcoholic beverages are banned.

8. Free from or lacking embellishment or sweetness, particularly:
   1. (wine and other alcoholic beverages) Low in sugar; lacking sugar; unsweetened.

   2. (humor) Amusing without showing amusement.

   3. Lacking interest, boring.
      • c. 1601, William Shakespeare, Twelfe Night, or What You Will, 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 […]

   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.

10. (sciences, somewhat derogatory) Involving computations rather than work with biological or chemical matter.
11. (of a sound recording) Free from applied audio effects.
12. Without a usual complement or consummation; impotent.
    • 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 […]

    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.

Synonyms

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

Antonyms

• (free from liquid or moisture): See Thesaurus:wet
• (abstinent from alcohol): wet
• (not using afterburners or water injection): wet
• (of a scientist or lab: doing computation): wet

Derived terms

Descendants

• Sranan Tongo: drei

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).
   • 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.

3. (chiefly Australia, with "the") The dry season.
   • 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1943, Chapter VII, page 91, [1]

     […] 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 2012, p. 169:

     [T]he spring-fed river systems. Not the useless little tributary jutting off into a mud hole at the end of the Dry.

4. (Australia) An area of waterless country.
5. (Britain, 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)

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 nou?t out of resoun.

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

Conjugation

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• desiccant
• desiccate
• desiccation

Anagrams

• YRD

Albanian

Alternative forms

• dryn

Etymology

From Proto-Albanian *dr?na, from the same root as dru. Cognate to Sanskrit ?????? (dru??, “bow”), Persian ?????? (“rainbow”).

Noun

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

1. lock, bolt

Declension

Related terms

• dru
• drushtë
• ndryj

References

Middle English

Adjective

dry

1. Alternative form of drye

Old English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dry?/

Noun

dr? m

1. a sorcerer or magician

Derived terms

• dr?cræft
• dr?ecge

Descendants

• Middle English: dri, dri?, dry
  • ? Middle English: dri?mann, dri?menn pl

Welsh

Pronunciation

• (North Wales) IPA^(key): /dr??/
• (South Wales) IPA^(key): /dri?/

Verb

dry

1. Soft mutation of try.

Mutation