PARCHED

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does parched mean? 

• PARCHED (adjective)
  The adjective PARCHED has 2 senses:

1. dried out by heat or excessive exposure to sunlight

2. toasted or roasted slightly

  Familiarity information: PARCHED used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PARCHED (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Dried out by heat or excessive exposure to sunlight

Synonyms:

adust; baked; parched; scorched; sunbaked

Context example:

sunbaked salt flats

Similar:

dry (free from liquid or moisture; lacking natural or normal moisture or depleted of water; or no longer wet)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Toasted or roasted slightly

Context example:

parched corn was a staple of the Indian diet

Similar:

cooked (having been prepared for eating by the application of heat)

 Context examples 

All day she lay so, only rousing now and then to mutter, "Water!" with lips so parched they could hardly shape the word.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Ryder passed his tongue over his parched lips.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In the morning I went to the court; my lips and throat were parched.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

As the number of droughts increases globally, scientists from Oklahoma State University are working to develop predictions of how future parched conditions will affect plants, especially trees.

(What's killing trees during droughts?, National Science Foundation)

With two suns in its sky, Luke Skywalker's home planet Tatooine in "Star Wars" looks like a parched, sandy desert world.

(Earth-Sized 'Tatooine' Planets Could Be Habitable, NASA)

She did not dream of the volcanic convulsions of love, its scorching heat and sterile wastes of parched ashes.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

In the parched grasslands and savannas, or drylands, of Africa, South America and Asia, termite mounds store nutrients and moisture and via internal tunnels, allow water to better penetrate the soil.

(Dirt mounds made by termites in Africa, South America, Asia could prevent spread of deserts, NSF)

We moistened the parched lips, and the patient quickly revived.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

For that matter, high-strung and finely sensitive, the ill treatment had flung him into a fever, which was fed by the inflammation of his parched and swollen throat and tongue.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

But the heat grew greater as soon as noon came on, till at last, as he found himself on a wide heath that would take him more than an hour to cross, he began to be so hot and parched that his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)