dry hole
3
7.7
- noun
- /draɪ hoʊl/
- Jargon
:
pozo seco
- Unskilled people drill a lot of dry holes and screw up a lot of good wells and reservoirs.
- drilling a dry hole
- few dry holes
- get a dry hole
And you know, I think I can recall maybe one or two dry holes.
- And you know, I think I can recall maybe one or two dry holes.
- Was it a lot of dry holes, mixtures?
Examples
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Prospect risk is the probability that a given prospect is a dry hole.
Academic text (1991) -
Think of all the 'dry holes' that are not being included in EROI analysis, but are public costs in terms of making future oil more expensive.
Blog text (5) -
You got nothing to show for it but a dry hole?
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Thousands of dollars' worth of equipment lost, and in a dry hole.
-
"You are drilling a dry hole."
Blog text (32) -
We still drill dry holes.
Blog text (5) -
Looks like we drilled a dry hole.
-
This is a dry hole we got here, Loyd.
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This appears to be the case with Azerbaijan in particular, where, after drilling turned up dry holes, several companies announced that they would sell their shares in existing joint ventures and consortia.
Academic text (2004) -
After drilling several wells, they discovered that one was a dry hole with no oil or gas.
Antonyms
How Forceful
Surface Forms
Morphology
Knowing 'dry' (lacking liquid) and 'hole' (an opening) gives a B1 learner a plausible literal interpretation — a hole without liquid — and in a drilling context this can lead to the inference that the well yielded no oil or gas. However, the technical usage is domain-specific and the extended figurative sense 'an attempt that produces no result' is not fully predictable from the parts, so prior exposure or context is usually required.
Etymology
Dry hole comes from a real scene in oil work: when people drilled a well but found no oil or water, the hole was dry with nothing to take out. So today, calling something a dry hole means it was an attempt that gave 'no result' or was 'unsuccessful'.