dry up
Britishverb
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(intr) to become barren or unproductive; fail
in middle age his inspiration dried up
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to dry (dishes, cutlery, etc) with a tea towel after they have been washed
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informal (intr) to stop talking or speaking
when I got on the stage I just dried up
dry up!
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Gradually become unproductive, as in After two collections of short stories, his ability to write fiction dried up . Also see well's run dry .
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Stop talking; also, cause to stop talking. For example, Dry up! You've said enough . [ Slang ; mid-1800s]
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.
When those deals dried up, producers faced a painful course correction as income plunged but actors' demands stayed elevated.
From Barron's
Yet for investors considering any last-minute “window dressing” to spruce up their portfolios before liquidity tends to dry up during the year-end holiday period, Sutherland of Schroders said that’s not a good idea.
From MarketWatch
"I watched Warner Bros struggle since David Zaslav became the CEO and ran it into the ground," says an actor who lost his home after his work dried up.
From BBC
That was partly because the private-credit market dried up, so the “only real other option was FHA,” Gilbukh said, and also because buyers were scarce.
From MarketWatch
As the climate warmed and the ice retreated, the lake dried up, leaving a white salt pan in its place.
From Los Angeles Times
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.
