Drying \Dry"ing\, a.

1. Adapted or tending to exhaust moisture; as, a drying wind or day; a drying room.

2. Having the quality of rapidly becoming dry.

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.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

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.

To dry up.
   (a) To scorch or parch with thirst; to deprive utterly of water; to consume.

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

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.

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

To dry, or dry up, a cow, to cause a cow to cease secreting milk. --Tylor.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)