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definitions

dry-as-dust

or dry·as·dust

[drahy-uh z-duhst]
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adjective

dull and boring: a dry-as-dust biography.

Origin of dry-as-dust

1870–75; after Dr. Dryasdust, a fictitious pedant satirized in the prefaces of Sir Walter Scott's novels
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for dry-as-dust

Historical Examples of dry-as-dust

  • It was no use trying to be dry-as-dust since the spring had got into her blood.

    Mary Gray

    Katharine Tynan

  • It doesn't sound like the dry-as-dust dead collections of museums.

  • The clergyman was a remarkable specimen of the 'dry-as-dust' species.

  • I saw them this morning, a couple of dry-as-dust old fossils—city men, I believe, who only think of house property and dividends.

    The Seven Secrets

    William Le Queux

  • Dry-as-dust letters and specifications, builders' quantities, and so on, to type out.