dry up

verb

dried up; drying up; dries up

transitive verb

: to cut off the supply of

intransitive verb

1

: to disappear as if by evaporation, draining, or cutting off of a source of supply

2

: to wither or die through gradual loss of vitality

3

: to stop talking

Synonyms of dry up

• quiet (down)
• hush
• clam up
• shut up
• settle (down)
• pipe down
• cool (down)
• calm (down)

Examples of dry up in a Sentence

sick of her constant complaining, he angrily told her to dry up

Recent Examples on the Web

Ponds and streams are drying up. —Charles Seabrook, AJC.com, 2 May 2026

Prices for some Nvidia servers in China have doubled to nearly $1 million as a crackdown on chip smuggling has dried up black market supply amid a rush to secure access to top semiconductors. —Jeronimo Gonzalez, semafor.com, 30 Apr. 2026

Temporary bridge funding from universities is drying up, existing grants are nearing their end, and the flow of new NIH awards is anemic. —Anil Oza, STAT, 30 Apr. 2026

Prior production within a region is not necessarily a sign that materials within an area are drying up, but a signal of underlying geological potential. —William Jones, USA Today, 29 Apr. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at transitive sense

Rhymes for dry up

• backup
• blowup
• breakup
• buildup
• checkup
• cleanup
• holdup
• hookup
• lineup
• lockup
• makeup
• markup