Word.ws English Dictionary

driest

/dɹaɪəst/

driest is the superlative form of dry.

Meaning of dry

Adjective

dry (comparative drier or dryer, superlative driest or dryest)

  1. Free from or lacking moisture.
    • This towel's dry. Could you wet it and cover the chicken so it doesn't go dry as it cooks?
  2. Unable to produce a liquid, as water, (petrochemistry) oil, or (agriculture) milk.
    • This well is as dry as that cow.
  3. Built without or lacking mortar.
    • [A]lready the gate was blocked with a wall of squared stones laid dry, but very thick and very high, across the opening.1937 September 21, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “The Gathering of the Clouds”, in The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again, revised edition, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, published February 1966...
  4. Anhydrous: free from or lacking water in any state, regardless of the presence of other liquids.
    • Dry alcohol is 200 proof.
  5. (figuratively) Athirst, eager.
    • Prospero:[…]Confederates / (ſo drie he was for Sway) with King of Naples / To giue him Annuall tribute, doe him homage / Subiect his Coronet, to his Crowne and bend / The Dukedom yet vnbow'd (alas poore Millaine) / To moſt ignoble ſtooping.1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...
  6. Free from or lacking alcohol or alcoholic beverages.
    • Of course it's a dry house. He was an alcoholic but he's been dry for almost a year now.
    Synonyms:
    sober

See all 35 meanings of dry

Questions about driest

What is driest the superlative form of?
Driest is the superlative form of dry.
How do you pronounce driest?
Driest is pronounced /dɹaɪəst/.

Words near driest in the dictionary

  1. dries up
  2. dries up and blows away
  3. drieselase
  4. Driessen
  5. Driessens
  6. driest
  7. drieth
  8. Driffield
  9. drift
  10. drift along
  11. drift anchor

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: driest (page history and authors); dry (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-driest.wav.

Cite this entry: “driest.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/driest. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.