desiccate
part of speech
verb (desiccate, desiccates, desiccated, desiccating)
meaning for a pupil
1) To desiccate something is to remove all the water from it so it becomes completely dry. tree →
2) Desiccated (adjective) means completely dried out; desiccated coconut is dried, shredded coconut for baking. tree →
sense in the lessons
In cooking, desiccated coconut goes into cakes and biscuits. In science, a desiccator dries chemicals, and little packets of silica gel desiccate new shoes and bags (safety: do not eat them). In nature, deserts and drought desiccate plants and soil.
examples
- Sprinkle desiccated coconut on top of the cake. tree →
- The hot wind desiccated the crops. tree →
- Silica gel packets desiccate the air in a shoe box. tree →
- The desiccated leaves crumbled in my hand. tree →
- Egyptians desiccated bodies with salt to make mummies. tree →
- Drought desiccates the soil until it cracks. tree →
note
Spelling trap: one s, two c's — desiccate. Regular verb. Noun: desiccation. The silica gel packets say «do not eat»: they are not food.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «desiccate» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.