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
Related Words
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.
So with farmers facing arid brown fields that should be flooded, lush paddies, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim this week announced cloud-seeding operations to trigger rain.
From Barron's • May 8, 2026
Camus’s vision may have been a bleak and arid one, but it retains its awful potency.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 2, 2026
Natives actually tend to do better after several years of drought, once invasives not adapted to the arid climate die out.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 26, 2026
Often compared to polar deserts, the Atacama is considered one of the most arid regions in the world.
From Science Daily • Mar. 2, 2026
By the time of Gilmore’s visit, Blackwater Draw was an arid, almost vegetation-free jumble of sandy drifts and faces of fractured caliche.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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.
