arid
Americanadjective
-
being without moisture; extremely dry; parched.
arid land;
an arid climate.
-
barren or unproductive because of lack of moisture.
arid farmland.
-
lacking interest or imaginativeness; sterile.
an arid treatment of an exciting topic.
- Synonyms:
- pedantic, jejune, uninspiring, uninspired, vapid, dreary, tedious, dull
- Antonyms:
- imaginative, spirited, exciting, interesting, lively
adjective
-
having little or no rain; dry; parched with heat
-
devoid of interest
Synonym Usage
See dry.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of arid
First recorded in 1645–55; from French or directly from Latin āridus, equivalent to ār(ēre) “to be dry” + -idus adjective suffix; see -id 4; cf. ash 1
Explanation
Arid is so dry that nothing will grow. Death Valley in California features an arid climate, which is why it's called Death Valley and not Life Valley. Arid can also mean terribly dull or lifeless. A textbook about the climate of Death Valley might be called arid if it's written in an uninteresting way. Just like you wouldn't want to live in an arid climate, you wouldn't want to sit through an arid performance of the film-turned-musical, "Some Like it Hot."
Vocabulary lists containing arid
100 Top "SAT" Words
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A Long Walk to Water
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Physical Geography - Introductory
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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.
Satellite images examined by BBC Verify show shrunken glaciers, scorched areas left by wildfires, green fields turned arid and lower river levels.
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
But that can happen any place on any day, and nobody has to mess up an arid ecosystem to enjoy it.
From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2026
Power and water have emerged as major issues in the data-center dispute in this arid region, where sprawling lettuce and alfalfa farms rely on the Colorado River for irrigation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026
These cycles steadily reshaped the continent, making its landscapes more arid and increasingly vulnerable to fire.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 17, 2026
Dreadful as the Dead Marshes had been, and the arid moors of the Noman-lands, more loathsome far was the country that the crawling day now slowly unveiled to his shrinking eyes.
From "The Two Towers" by J. R. R. Tolkien
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.
