freeze-dry

[freez-drahy]

verb (used with object)

freeze-dried, freeze-drying 

1. to subject to freeze-drying.

freeze-dry

verb

1. (tr) to preserve (a substance) by rapid freezing and subsequently drying in a vacuum

freeze-dry

1. To preserve a substance, such as food, by freezing it rapidly and placing it in a vacuum chamber, where the water frozen in the substance evaporates through sublimation.

Word History and Origins

Origin of freeze-dry¹

First recorded in 1945–50

Example Sentences

In between pulls, she snacked on freeze-dried duck liver bits and got a massage.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

It’s finally freeze-dried to form ice sheets in a vacuum that are eventually broken to produce the final product.

Read more on Salon

The freeze-dried puffs are made with natural ingredients, including spirulina, paprika, vegetable juice, turmeric and fruit juice.

Read more on Salon

From this bold declaration she unspools her thesis: The Constitution was not freeze-dried at the beginning but instead has bloomed and grown to meet the republic’s needs, as the framers foresaw.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Therefore, most meals are canned, vacuum packed or freeze-dried, with fresh fruit and vegetables a rare luxury that can only be enjoyed when a spacecraft arrives with new supplies.

Read more on BBC

Related Words

• bake 
• blot 
• deplete 
• drain 
• empty 
• evaporate 
• exhaust 
• sear 
• shrivel 
• wilt 
• wipe 
• wither