Overdry

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To subject an object or material to a level of dehydration that results in an extreme lack of moisture and alters its natural state significantly
2. To excessively extract moisture from a substance, causing it to become excessively dry and potentially damaging its quality
3. To remove an excessive amount of moisture from a material, resulting in an extreme alteration of its texture and potential degradation of its original quality

Etymology: "Overdry" is about as plain as English coinages get: the prefix "over-", meaning excessively or too much, attached to the verb "dry." The prefix has been productive in English since Old English, when it was used in words like "ofer" compounds to mean "above" or "beyond," and that sense of surpassing a limit carried over into the modern meaning of doing something to excess. The verb "dry" itself comes from Old English "drigan," and it has been used in the sense of removing moisture since then. Pairing it with "over-" simply gives the sense of removing too much moisture, as in drying food or wood until it becomes brittle or hard. Cooks and woodworkers are the people most likely to run into the word, since an overdried loaf or piece of timber has lost the texture that makes it useful. Because the formation is transparent, there is little more to say about its history. It is a plain compound built from two long-established English elements, and it can be used of any verb that has an "over-" form.

Synonyms: dehydrate, desiccate, parch, drought, evaporate

Antonyms: moisten, hydrate, wet, dampen, soak