desiccate

American  

[des-i-kayt] / ˈdɛs ɪˌkeɪt /

verb (used with object)

• desiccates,
  present (3rd person singular)
• desiccated,
  past participle,  past
• desiccating
  present participle

1. to dry thoroughly; dry up.

2. to preserve (food) by removing moisture; dehydrate.

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verb (used without object)

• desiccates,
  present (3rd person singular)
• desiccated,
  past participle,  past
• desiccating
  present participle

1. to become thoroughly dried or dried up.

desiccate British  

/ ˈdɛsɪˌkeɪt /

verb

1. (tr) to remove most of the water from (a substance or material); dehydrate

2. (tr) to preserve (food) by removing moisture; dry

3. (intr) to become dried up

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desiccate Scientific  

/ dĕs′ĭ-kāt′ /

1. To remove the moisture from something or dry it thoroughly.

2. ◆ A desiccator is a container that removes moisture from the air within it.

3. ◆ A desiccator contains a desiccant, a substance that traps or absorbs water molecules. Some desiccants include silica gel (silicon dioxide), calcium sulfate (dehydrated gypsum), calcium oxide (calcined lime), synthetic molecular sieves (porous crystalline aluminosilicates), and dried clay.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• desiccation
  noun
• desiccative
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Participles

• desiccating
  present
• desiccated
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• desiccate
  simple
• desiccates
  simple
• have desiccated
  perfect
• has desiccated
  perfect
• am desiccating
  progressive
• are desiccating
  progressive
• is desiccating
  progressive
• have been desiccating
  perfect progressive
• has been desiccating
  perfect progressive

Past

• desiccated
  simple
• had desiccated
  perfect
• was desiccating
  progressive
• were desiccating
  progressive
• had been desiccating
  perfect progressive

Future

• will desiccate
  simple
• will have desiccated
  perfect
• will be desiccating
  progressive
• will have been desiccating
  perfect progressive

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Etymology

Origin of desiccate

1565–75; < Latin dēsiccātus dried up, past participle of dēsiccāre, equivalent to dē- de- + siccāre, derivative of siccus dry; see -ate ¹

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Explanation

The verb desiccate means to dry out, dry up and dehydrate. It's helpful to desiccate weeds but certainly not crops. As anyone who's been stuck in the desert will tell you, being desiccated by the burning sun isn't much fun. Stemming from the Latin word desiccare, which means to "dry up," desiccate also means to preserve something by drying it out. Without desiccation, raisins or beef jerky would not be possible!

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

desiccate desiccates desiccated desiccating

He dedicated scarce water to building up agriculture, helping to desiccate the ancient Persian system of underground aqueduct-like canals known as qanats.

From New York Times ● Jun. 21, 2023

As Western drought and aridification desiccate soils, shrink mountain snowpack runoff and reduce river flows, irrigating alfalfa for dairy production will become more and more problematic.

From Salon ● Oct. 29, 2022

There's "a critical point", though, when the tree can't replenish the water lost through pores in the leaves and will "literally desiccate" or dry up.

From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2022

They desiccate when temperatures plummet, sidestepping the potential hazard of ice forming in their tissues.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 5, 2019

Now she seemed to desiccate by the moment.

From "The Girl Who Drank the Moon" by Kelly Barnhill

The sequence of a wet season that allows grasses to grow, followed by a dry spell that desiccates them, results in a particularly high fuel load for fires, Brewington said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2023

But if you make the walls too thin, your jack-o’-lantern’s fangs will become inward-curving skin tabs as the pulp desiccates and deforms.

From Scientific American ● Oct. 19, 2022

What remains on the landscape is a body of skin and bones that then slowly desiccates and deflates, eventually preserved for the eons.

From New York Times ● Oct. 12, 2022

Like a giant hair dryer, the wind desiccates everything in its path.

From Slate ● Nov. 20, 2018

Let a good, thorough-paced proser get hold of one of these stories, and he carefully desiccates them of whatever fancy may be left, till he has reduced them to the proper dryness of fact.

From Among My Books First Series by James Russell Lowell

Finally, Sen. Mitch McConnell’s desiccated remains returned to cast a vote in the Senate.

From Salon ● Sep. 18, 2026

There was the chirping of cicadas and the crunch of desiccated pine needles underfoot, but the most remarkable thing about the place was the quiet.

From Slate ● Sep. 8, 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

Plus: Does anyone really like nibbling desiccated gumdrops?

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 5, 2025

In the wedding registry of Alton, New Hampshire, they remained married, their contract a legal if desiccated thing.

From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson

He says they were "like plastic...you could almost knock them...they were black, desiccating, clenched".

From BBC ● May 21, 2024

Thank you, Bill Burr, for sparing me from suffering through more than 90 minutes of Bill Maher’s desiccating “Club Random” podcast.

From Salon ● May 16, 2024

But in the dry volcanic valley, punished by sun and desiccating wind, the newcomers built virtually no homes.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 3, 2022

The fall and winter seasons are also the time when strong, desiccating offshore winds develop in California.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 13, 2021

Composed of heat-resistant plastic and chemically treated cork layers, and equipped with a desiccating unit to keep the air bone-dry, the insosuits could withstand the full glare of Mercury’s sun for twenty minutes.

From "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov

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