dryly
Britishadverb
Explanation
If you say something dryly, you say it in a funny but matter-of-fact way. Your friend's dryly humorous comments might be your favorite thing about watching soap operas with him. People who joke or remark dryly have a straight-faced delivery, even as they are saying the funniest things. You could also describe a black comedy as being dryly funny, or a character in a book as narrating dryly. The adverb dryly comes from dry, which more commonly means "not wet" than "subtly humorous" — although the humor meaning dates from the early 15th century.
Vocabulary lists containing dryly
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.
“That’s the most exciting laundry I’ve ever done,” a man with a gray beard says dryly, then walks back into everyday life, to the extent that everyday life is possible anymore.
From Slate • Feb. 11, 2026
"I'm scraping," he chuckled dryly, saying his family has cut back on eating out and going on longer drives.
From Barron's • Feb. 5, 2026
“I don’t talk to other shale execs anymore,” he said dryly in an interview with The Wall Street Journal last year.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 22, 2026
Still, it may as well be implied by the character’s disaffected approach to the tectonic event that undergirds Victor’s dryly funny, intimate debut.
From Salon • Jul. 28, 2025
"Even hungry dogs know better than to bite the hand that feeds them," Littlefinger called dryly.
From "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin
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.
