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  1. desiccate love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To dry out thoroughly.
  2. v. To preserve (foods) by removing the moisture. See Synonyms at dry.
  3. v. To make dry, dull, or lifeless.
  4. v. To become dry; dry out.
  5. adj. Lacking spirit or animation; arid: "There was only the sun-bruised and desiccate feeling in his mind” ( J.R. Salamanca).

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To dry; deprive of moisture; expel moisture from; especially, to bring to a thoroughly dry state for preservation, as various kinds of food.
  2. To become dry.
  3. Dry; dried.

Wiktionary

  1. v. to dry
  2. v. to preserve by drying

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. To dry up; to deprive or exhaust of moisture; to preserve by drying.
  2. v. To become dry.

WordNet 3.0

  1. v. lose water or moisture
  2. adj. lacking vitality or spirit; lifeless.
  3. v. preserve by removing all water and liquids from
  4. v. remove water from

Etymologies

  1. From Latin dēsiccō (Wiktionary)
  2. Latin dēsiccāre, dēsiccāt- : dē-, de- + siccāre, to dry up (from siccus, dry). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “But maybe don't ask too much further because it's possible that before 'freezer perpetuity', the deceased cats might have been laid out on the hood of cars on front lawn, you know, to kind of desiccate before being burying?”

    The Moderate Voice

  • “Specifically, that means a time when liquid water appears to have run freely around the planet, and when Mars had a magnetic field surrounding it that enabled a much thicker atmosphere to act as a shield against the ravages of the solar wind and the ultraviolet radiation that now desiccate the surface.”

    Simon & Schuster: First Contact

  • “Windy conditions can also desiccate so erect a windbreak until they are established.”

    The Guardian: January: the to-do list

  • “Finally, they shrink by as much as half as they desiccate naturally.”

    The Washington Post: Groundwork: Beans, cute and dried

  • “The trick was to desiccate the seeds, spores and the animals first (for 3 days over silica gel) before heating them slowly at a rate of 4 °C per minute.”

    Archive 2009-07-01

  • “This dance of man against man in a self-created desert is different only in scale and naked exposure from how we live in the U.S. with our armies and watchmen and willingness to desiccate the lands that feed us.”

    The Huffington Post: Valerie Tarico: Man Against Nature is Man Against Man

  • “What that means is that the juiciest of tips, when subjected to research, tend to desiccate and crumble.”

    Simon & Schuster: The Fiddler in the Subway

  • “I have been subjected to tales so woeful as to desiccate even the most exuberant soul.”

    Archive 2010-01-01

  • “THE MAIN EXCEPTION to my Western seeking after heart surgery was Texasville, a sequel to Picture Show centered on the famous oil boom of the 70s, which described the excesses of human folly as I witnessed them in Archer City and the homes of my siblings as the irresistible notion of riches came to race through and desiccate the town, all despite that the history of booms is well known.”

    Simon & Schuster: HOLLYWOOD

  • “Chabon sees overprotective parenting clearing the “wilderness” he remembers, and fears that it will desiccate the imagination of future generations.”

    The New York Review’s Fiction Issue - Paper Cuts Blog - NYTimes.com

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synonyms (3)

Words with the same meaning

  1. dry
  1. parch
  1. dehydrate

equivalents (1)

Other words for ‘desiccate’

  1. dull

antonyms (3)

Words with the opposite meaning

  1. moisturize
  1. moisten
  1. wet

hypernyms (4)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. dry
  1. dry out
  1. preserve
  1. keep

reverse dictionary (6)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. desicate
  1. dessicate
  1. dephlegm
  1. desiccate
  1. dry
  1. calcine

tags (1)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. often misspelled

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Lists

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Comments

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  • oroboros The most difficult uncommon word to spell.
    --Chris Cole, Wordplay (See comment under "Wordplay List".) May 24, 2008

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‘desiccate’ has been looked up 3027 times, loved by 7 people, added to 55 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 14.