dry-as-dust

or dry·as·dust

[ drahy-uhz-duhst ]

adjective

1. dull and boring:

   a dry-as-dust biography.

Word History and Origins

Origin of dry-as-dust¹

1870–75; after Dr. Dryasdust, a fictitious pedant satirized in the prefaces of Sir Walter Scott's novels

Idioms and Phrases

Dull, boring, as in This text is dry as dust; it's putting me to sleep . [c. 1500]

Example Sentences

The evidence of accelerating climate change has become more alarming, with California as dry as dust and much of the world suffering through record heat and drought, along with the drought-deluge cycle associated with climate change.

From Los Angeles Times

The next day she said I did not put in enough water, and the rice was dry as dust.

From Literature

Cicadas hummed insistently in the trees, and the soil was dry as dust.

From Literature

The Party’s alternative choices seemed either as dry as dust—Senators Arthur Vandenberg and Robert A. Taft—or too green: the skyrocketing New York crime fighter Thomas E. Dewey was only thirty-eight, and Harold Stassen, the “boy wonder” governor of Minnesota, was five years younger.

From The New Yorker

He had been clad in mail, and still his harness lay there whole; for the cavern’s air was as dry as dust, and his hauberk was gilded.

From Literature

Related Words

• anxious
• dehydrated
• eager
• greedy
• hungry
• impatient
• inclined
• keen
• parched