parching

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English

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Etymology

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From parch +‎ -ing.

Adjective

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parching (comparative more parching, superlative most parching)

  1. Causing something or someone to parch; extremely drying. [from 16th c.]
    • a. 1749 (date written), 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[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC:
      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.
  2. Very thirsty; parched. [from 17th c.]

Verb

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parching

  1. present participle and gerund of parch

Noun

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parching (plural parchings)

  1. 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.
  2. 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.