Aridify

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To cause land or a region to become dry, barren and lacking sufficient moisture to support plant life over time
2. Making an area progressively drier, so that its soil loses water and its climate turns desert-like
3. Turning fertile or damp ground into parched, lifeless terrain through drying and loss of moisture

Etymology: "Aridify" is a plain formation: the adjective "arid", meaning dry and barren, combined with the suffix "-ify", which turns adjectives and nouns into verbs meaning "make into" or "cause to become." Put together, it means to make land dry, parched, or desert-like. "Arid" itself was borrowed into English from Latin "aridus", meaning dry, from "arere", to be dry. The Latin root shows up in a few other English words, such as "arid" relatives like "arson," which comes from a related Old French form meaning something burned, though that connection runs through a separate path. The suffix "-ify" came into English through Old French from Latin "-ificare", a verb-making ending built from "facere", to make. That is why so many verbs ending in "-ify" carry the sense of making something into a certain state, as in "clarify" or "simplify." "Aridify" follows the same pattern, adding a new verb for the process of drying land out.

Synonyms: desiccate, parch, dry out

Antonyms: moisten, irrigate, hydrate