parching

comparative more parching · superlative most parching

1. Causing something or someone to parch; extremely drying.First known use 16th c.

   Who can unpitying see the flowery race, / Shed by the morn, their new-flush'd bloom resign, / Before the parching beam?

   a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Summer”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC

   3 more examples

   The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom.[…]Drifts of yellow vapour, fiery, parching, stinging, filled the air.

   1892, James Yoxall, chapter 5, in The Lonely Pyramid

   The series of these great events began in the year 1333, fifteen years before the plague broke out in Europe: they first appeared in China. Here a parching drought, accompanied by famine, commenced in the tract of country watered by the rivers Kiang and Hoai.

   1888, J. F. C. Hecker, “Causes.-Spread.”, in B. G. Babington, transl., The Black Death and the Dancing Mania, →OCLC, page 24

   I began also to feel very hungry, as not having eaten for twenty-four hours; and worse than that, there was a parching thirst and dryness in my throat, and nothing with which to quench it.

   [1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC

2. Very thirsty; parched.First known use 17th c.

   Proceed to nearest canteen and there annex liquor stores. March! Tramp, tramp, tramp the boys are […] parching.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of parch

plural parchings

1. The process of parching or roasting something, such as corn.

   I have already told how we parched sunflower seed; and that I used two or three double-handfuls of seed to a parching. I used two parchings of sunflower seed for one mess of four-vegetables-mixed.

   1917, Studies in the Social Sciences, number 9, page 20

2. The condition of being parched; absolute dryness.

   Squalid youths with ghastly grin, In hollow bitter roots shall bring, Urine of the unsav'ry goat, To quell the parchings of thy throat.

   1797, Icelandic Poetry: Or The Edda of Sæmund, page 95