dried-up
Americanadjective
-
depleted of water or moisture; gone dry.
a dried-up water hole.
-
shriveled with age; wizened.
a dried-up old mule skinner.
Etymology
Origin of dried-up
First recorded in 1810–20
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.
Running a big food company these days is like fishing in a dried-up pond.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 29, 2026
When the team analysed the dried-up powder, they found it contained hematite, "giving the paste a deep red colour".
From BBC • Mar. 13, 2024
Ingenuity remains in contact with its companion, the Perseverance rover, which has been exploring a dried-up river bed for signs of extinct Martian life.
From New York Times • Jan. 25, 2024
The days were warm and dusty, a hallmark of the landscape whose dried-up lake bed, known as the playa, consists of a caustic alkaline dust akin to the texture of flour.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 10, 2023
Gaunt cattle, their ribs protruding and their heads hanging low, stood listless at the bottoms of dried-up stock ponds where the mud had dried and cracked into mosaics of tiles as hard as stone.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
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.
