dry up

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dry up (third-person singular simple present dries up, present participle drying up, simple past and past participle dried up)

1. (intransitive) To become dry (often of weather); to lose water.

   Synonyms: desiccate; dehydrate

   Hypernym: dry (sometimes synonymous)

   Coordinate term: dry out (sometimes synonymous)

   I'll go shopping when it dries up.

   Last summer the lake completely dried up.

2. (transitive) To cause to become dry.

   Synonyms: desiccate; dehydrate

   Hypernym: dry (sometimes synonymous)

   Coordinate term: dry out (sometimes synonymous)

   The heatwave dried up all the rivers.

3. (intransitive, transitive, intransitive) To manually dry dishes and utensils.

   Synonyms: dry, wipe up (British)

   I'll dry up if you wash up.

4. (transitive) To deprive someone of (something vital).

   Coordinate terms: wipe out, ruin, tank

   The bankruptcy rumor dried up his sales.

5. (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

6. (intransitive) To stop talking because one has forgotten what one was going to say.

   Coordinate terms: shut up; freeze up

   This surprised me so much that I dried up for a moment.

   1. (of an actor) To forget one's lines.
7. (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!

   • 1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1965, →OCLC, page 168:

     "Oh, dry up,' said Arnold morosely.

• 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).

• dry up and blow away

• Purdy, purdy, updry