Word.ws English Dictionary

dry powder

dry powder noun: a powder found in a fire extinguisher that is expelled to smother the fire (in contrast with liquid types of extinguisher).

Noun

dry powder (countable and uncountable, plural dry powders)

  1. A powder found in a fire extinguisher that is expelled to smother the fire (in contrast with liquid types of extinguisher).
  2. A powder found in an inhaler that delivers a bronchodilator for antiasthmatic or antiemphysemic purposes (indications).
  3. Cash (or cash-like securities) kept in reserve in case of need.
    • Private equity firms were sitting on more than $1 trillion in dry powder at the end of 2011.
  4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see dry, powder; especially, gunpowder kept dry to keep it from spoiling before use.

Forms of dry powder

pluraldry powders

Origin of dry powder

The financial sense comes by metaphor from the sense of gunpowder kept dry to allow rapid loading of a firearm, as in the expression keep one's powder dry.

Words formed from dry powder

Questions about dry powder

What does dry powder mean?
Dry powder means a powder found in a fire extinguisher that is expelled to smother the fire (in contrast with liquid types of extinguisher).
What part of speech is dry powder?
Dry powder is a noun.
What is the plural of dry powder?
The plural of dry powder is dry powders.

Words near dry powder in the dictionary

  1. dry ponds
  2. dry port
  3. dry ports
  4. dry pot
  5. dry pots
  6. dry powder
  7. dry powder inhaler
  8. dry powder inhalers
  9. dry powders
  10. dry promotion
  11. dry razor

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dry powder (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 powder.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dry_powder. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.