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# The BFD Word of the Day
- URL: https://goodoil.news/the-bfd-word-of-the-day-569/
- Published: 2021-08-20T18:15:00.000Z
- Updated: 2021-07-05T18:33:14.000Z
- Author: David Theobald
- Tags: General, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-17 01:54

The word for today is…

desiccate (verb) –

1 : to dry up  
2 : to preserve (a food) by drying  
3 : to drain of emotional or intellectual vitality

Source : [Merriam -Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/desiccate?ref=goodoil.news)

Etymology : Raisins are desiccated grapes; they’re also dehydrated grapes. And yet, a close look at the etymologies of desiccate and dehydrate raises a tangly question. In Latin siccus means “dry,” whereas the Greek stem hydr- means “water.” So how could it be that desiccate and dehydrate are synonyms? The answer is in the multiple identities of the prefix de-. It may look like the same prefix, but the de- in desiccate means “completely, thoroughly,” as in despoil (“to spoil utterly”) or denude (“to strip completely bare”). The de- in dehydrate, on the other hand, means “remove,” the same as it does in defoliate (“to strip of leaves”) or in deice (“to rid of ice”).

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