M-W Word of the day

Merriam-Webster Online: Word of the Day

desiccate • \DESS-ih-kayt\ Audio icon • verb
*1 : to dry up or become dried up
2 : to preserve (a food) by drying : dehydrate
3 : to drain of emotional or intellectual vitality

Example sentence:
Weeks of blazing heat along with a prolonged lack of rain have desiccated many of the plants in our garden.


desiccator俺们常能用到，是生活中是用来使食物脱水的器皿，实验中则是用来保存moisture sensitive的药品的干燥罐。desiccate是dehydrate的同义词，两者都是脱水的意思，各种果脯就是desiccated fruit, dehydrated fruit或者更简单的说就是dry fruit。从词源学上来分析这两个词，desiccate来自拉丁语de+ succus， siccus是dry－“干”的意思，而dehydrate来自希腊词根 hydr-“水”， 看来这两个词应该是反义词才对。这个矛盾产生的原因是前缀"de"在这两个词中有不同的含义：desiccate中的de-是“完全的”，“十分的”的意思，所以这个词字面上就是completely dry的意思；而dehydrate里的de-是除去的意思，所以dehydrate字面上是remove water，这个释义比较常见，比如defreeze -解冻（相当于deice), defoliate是romove leaves-使落叶， debug当然就是remove bugs咯。