Word.ws English Dictionary

dry holes

dry holes is the plural of dry hole.

Meaning of dry hole

Noun

dry hole (plural dry holes)

  1. A hole drilled into the ground for oil or gas exploration which fails to yield enough oil or gas to justify the establishment of a well.
  2. (figuratively) Something that brings no success or profit; a dead loss.
    • Ultrasound as a treatment for degenerative arthritis was in its infancy. It might eventually turn out to be as effective as the Salk vaccine, or as bogus as the science of phrenology. Either way, it didn't make sense right now. The chances were a thousand to one that it was a dry hole.1991, Stephen King, Needful Things

Questions about dry holes

What is dry holes the plural of?
Dry holes is the plural of dry hole.

Words near dry holes in the dictionary

  1. dry heaved
  2. dry heaves
  3. dry heaving
  4. dry hire
  5. dry hole
  6. dry holes
  7. dry hop
  8. dry hopped
  9. dry hopping
  10. dry hops
  11. dry humor

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dry holes (page history and authors); dry hole (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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Cite this entry: “dry holes.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dry_holes. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.