dry-as-dust
Americanadjective
Etymology
Origin of dry-as-dust
1870–75; after Dr. Dryasdust, a fictitious pedant satirized in the prefaces of Sir Walter Scott's novels
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.
Yesterday, the decision emerged in a dry-as-dust news release at the dog end of the political day.
From BBC • Dec. 8, 2022
Hughes has infused new life into dry-as-dust facts to produce a learned work that is brazenly, impudently vivacious.
From Washington Post • Mar. 7, 2018
Even that old windbag Polonius, played by Robert Joy, is less a bombastic grandstander than a dry-as-dust martinet.
From New York Times • Jan. 23, 2018
Even when they didn’t, there was always Mr Norton to nudge them along with a dry-as-dust “oops. That’s got to be awkward.”
From The Guardian • May 23, 2015
Sybil’s prettiness and her charm so wrought upon this dry-as-dust person, however, that he volunteered the address of the literary agent through whom the book had been purchased.
From Man and Maid by Nesbit, E. (Edith)
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.
