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
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
Using historical narrative to illuminate a broad-scope, international principle is a welcome change from dry-as-dust writing about such topics.
From Washington Post • Jul. 22, 2016
“I withstood all the pain, standing out here in the rain,” he sings, over a dry-as-dust, horn-punctuated backbeat that would have graced any of his early 1970s singles.
From The Guardian • Apr. 20, 2016
"What you say, ma petite, sounds very like the dry-as-dust utterances of some podgy Minister of State; they are far from being the words of a woman who loves, and so they are not yours."
From A Son of the Immortals by Christy, Howard Chandler
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.
