dry up and blow away

verb

To go away; to disappear.

Ask AI about this wordChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

Meanings

verbdry up and blow away (third-person singular simple present dries up and blows away, present participle drying up and blowing away, simple past dried up and blew away, past participle dried up and blown away)

present singular third person dries up and blows away · participle present drying up and blowing away · past dried up and blew away · participle past dried up and blown away

  1. idiomaticinformalTo go away; to disappear.

    No-one wants to donate a large sum of hard-earned money to an agency that may dry up and blow away next year.

    2010, John Mutz, Katherine Murray, Fundraising For Dummies
    1 more example

    But some neighbors still let their sprinklers spray, and Mr. Trussell worried that the little community his grandparents helped build was on the brink of drying up and blowing away.

    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
Cite this entry
APA

dry up and blow away. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dry%20up%20and%20blow%20away

MLA

“dry up and blow away.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dry%20up%20and%20blow%20away. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “dry up and blow away,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dry%20up%20and%20blow%20away.

Source: dry up and blow away on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.