adjective
Etymology
Origin of bone-dry
First recorded in 1815–25
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.
“This Is Not About Us” mines excellent, bone-dry humor from the neuroses.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 5, 2026
It’s dry but not bone-dry, a wine to please a wide range of palates.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 27, 2025
The combination of a bone-dry winter, an early and rapid spring snowmelt, and a forecasted anomalously hot summer raises the risk of intense fire activity across the region, he said.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 18, 2025
It warned that there was typically a large volume of "dead, bone-dry vegetation across large areas of countryside" at this time of year which acts as a fuel for fire.
From BBC • Apr. 6, 2025
Just north of us was the bone-dry Kabul River.
From "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini
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.
