dry as dust
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Meaning · English
Very dull or boring.
Where it’s used:
Used
American English
Examples
His tongue had not been cut out — it loomed thick and purple behind those savage teeth and the thick whiskers of severed whip — however his throat was dry as dust.
As a boy I was always taught to use a sod of turf as a foundation, so that the eggs would remain slightly damp, and to build a snug nest of hay on top of it -and the barn wall was knobbly, draughty and dry as dust.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Adapted from English Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30 via kaikki.org). Figurative class: Simile (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).
Common questions
What does “dry as dust” mean?
Very dull or boring.
Is “dry as dust” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.