dry up

present singular third person dries up · participle present drying up · participle past dried up · past dried up

1. intransitiveTo become dry (often of weather); to lose water.

   I'll go shopping when it dries up.

   2 more examples

   Last summer the lake completely dried up.

   But those newcomers need water — water that is vanishing as a megadrought dries up reservoirs and rivers across the West. […] Groundwater and streams vital both to farmers and cities are drying up. […] Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah said all but one of the fields on his family’s farm had dried up.

   2021 July 20, Jack Healy, Sophie Kasakove, “A Drought So Dire That a Utah Town Pulled the Plug on Growth”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 31 Jul 2021

   Synonyms: desiccate, dehydrate

2. transitiveTo cause to become dry.

   The heatwave dried up all the rivers.

   Synonyms: desiccate, dehydrate

3. ambitransitiveintransitiveTo manually dry dishes and utensils.

   I'll dry up if you wash up.

   Synonyms: dry, wipe up

4. transitiveTo deprive someone of (something vital).

   The bankruptcy rumor dried up his sales.

5. intransitiveTo gradually decrease and eventually cease.

   When our money dried up, we had to get proper jobs.

   2 more examples

   After the stock market crash, the easy financing dried up.

   This love has dried up and stayed behind

   2008, Adele, First Love

   Synonyms: wither away

6. intransitiveTo stop talking because one has forgotten what one was going to say.

   This surprised me so much that I dried up for a moment.

   1 more example

   “Well, Atticus, I was just sayin‘ to Mr. Cunningham that entailments are bad an’ all that, but you said not to worry, it takes a long time sometimes… that you all’d ride it out together…” I was slowly drying up, wondering what idiocy I had committed.

   1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC

   1. intransitiveTo forget one's lines.
7. 1930s US slangTo stop talking or drop a topic.

   Oh, dry up, you old fuddy-duddy!

   1 more example

   "Oh, dry up,' said Arnold morosely.

   1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, →OCLC, page 168

   Synonyms: shut up, clam up