desiccated
Americanadjective
adjective
-
dehydrated and powdered
desiccated coconut
-
lacking in spirit or animation
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of desiccated
Explanation
To be desiccated is to be dried out. If you like desiccated fruit, you like dried fruit — such as raisins or dried apricots. Something that's described with the adjective desiccated is extremely dry, or parched. During a drought, the ground becomes cracked and desiccated. Removing moisture and humidity from something is what makes it become desiccated. The Latin root, desiccatus, means "to make very dry."
Vocabulary lists containing desiccated
Into the Wild
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Ender's Game
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This Week In Words: August 22–28, 2020
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Kato, it turns out, had been dead for at least 30 years, his desiccated remains locked in an upstairs room while his family continued to collect his pension.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 5, 2026
We drove past more empty lots, more abandoned groves, desiccated trees, signs announcing public hearings for land-use changes.
From Slate • Apr. 20, 2026
"Everything is there. I was stuck here," he told AFP in Karachi, near the well-known Bengali market where he peddles desiccated fish and prawns to make ends meet for $7 to $9 per day.
From Barron's • Feb. 23, 2026
Oregon’s Lake Abert has repeatedly dried up, and biologists have found that when it’s desiccated, more phalaropes fly farther south to Mono Lake.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 22, 2025
In the wake of the reapers’ scythes the black land showed again through the stubble, no longer moist and rich but bone-hard, desiccated, and beginning to crack in all directions under the burning sun.
From "The Golden Goblet" by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
