parching
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Adjective[edit]
parching (comparative more parching, superlative most parching)
- Causing something or someone to parch; extremely drying. [from 16th c.]
- 1727, James Thomson, “Summer”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC:
- Who can unpitying see the flowery race, / Shed by the morn, their new-flush'd bloom resign, / Before the parching beam?
- 1892, James Yoxall, chapter 5, in The Lonely Pyramid:
- The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom. […] Drifts of yellow vapour, fiery, parching, stinging, filled the air.
- 1888, J. F. C. Hecker, “Causes.-Spread.”, in B. G. Babington, transl., The Black Death and the Dancing Mania[1], →OCLC, page 24:
- The series of these great events began in the year 1333, fifteen years before the plague broke out in Europe: they first appeared in China. Here a parching drought, accompanied by famine, commenced in the tract of country watered by the rivers Kiang and Hoai.
- 1898, J. Meade Falkner, chapter 4, in Moonfleet, London, Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934:
- I began also to feel very hungry, as not having eaten for twenty-four hours; and worse than that, there was a parching thirst and dryness in my throat, and nothing with which to quench it.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:parching.
- Very thirsty; parched. [from 17th c.]
- 1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:
- Proceed to nearest canteen and there annex liquor stores. March! Tramp, tramp, tramp the boys are […] parching.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:parching.
Verb[edit]
parching
- present participle and gerund of parch
Noun[edit]
parching (plural parchings)
- The process of parching or roasting something, such as corn.
- 1917, Studies in the Social Sciences, number 9, page 20:
- I have already told how we parched sunflower seed; and that I used two or three double-handfuls of seed to a parching. I used two parchings of sunflower seed for one mess of four-vegetables-mixed.
- The condition of being parched; absolute dryness.
- 1797, Icelandic Poetry: Or The Edda of Sæmund, page 95:
- Squalid youths with ghastly grin,
In hollow bitter roots shall bring,
Urine of the unsav'ry goat,
To quell the parchings of thy throat.