drying

Drying \Dry"ing\, a.
   1. Adapted or tending to exhaust moisture; as, a drying wind
      or day; a drying room.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Having the quality of rapidly becoming dry.
      [1913 Webster]

   {Drying oil}, an oil which, either naturally or after boiling
      with oxide of lead, absorbs oxygen from the air and dries
      up rapidly. Drying oils are used as the bases of many
      paints and varnishes.
      [1913 Webster]
    

Dry \Dry\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Dried}; p. pr. & vb. n.
   {Drying}.] [AS. drygan; cf. drugian to grow dry. See {Dry},
   a.]
   To make dry; to free from water, or from moisture of any
   kind, and by any means; to exsiccate; as, to dry the eyes; to
   dry one's tears; the wind dries the earth; to dry a wet
   cloth; to dry hay.
   [1913 Webster]

   {To dry up}.
   (a) To scorch or parch with thirst; to deprive utterly of
       water; to consume.
       [1913 Webster]

             Their honorable men are famished, and their
             multitude dried up with thirst.      -- Is. v. 13.
       [1913 Webster]

             The water of the sea, which formerly covered it,
             was in time exhaled and dried up by the sun.
                                                  --Woodward.
   (b) To make to cease, as a stream of talk.
       [1913 Webster]

             Their sources of revenue were dried up. -- Jowett
                                                  (Thucyd. )
       

   {To dry a cow}, or {To dry up a cow}, to cause a cow to cease
      secreting milk. --Tylor.
      [1913 Webster]
    

56 Moby Thesaurus words for "drying":
      Sanforizing, air-drying, anhydration, atrophy, attenuation,
      blast-freezing, bottling, brining, canning, consumption, corning,
      curing, dehumidification, dehydrating, dehydration, desiccant,
      desiccation, desiccative, drainage, dry-curing, drying up,
      emaceration, emaciation, embalming, evaporation, evaporative,
      exsiccant, exsiccative, freeze-drying, freezing, fuming,
      insolation, irradiation, jerking, marination, mummification,
      parching, pickling, potting, preshrinkage, quick-freezing,
      refrigeration, salting, searing, seasoning, shrinkage, shrinking,
      shriveling, siccative, smoking, stuffing, taxidermy, thinning,
      tinning, wasting, withering