dry spell
15
3.6
- noun
- /draɪ spɛl/
:
sequía
- The farmers were worried about the long dry spell affecting their crops.
- prolonged dry spell
And I feel like there'll be dry spells within the acting world.
- And I feel like there'll be dry spells within the acting world.
- It gets me through those, you know, those dry spells you run into when you're married.
- And how do I end this infinite dry spell?
- Holland went through this dry spell of not scoring in the Premier League and then started scoring in the Premier League.
Examples
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It's been a long dry spell.
-
In her nine years, Margaret had never seen such a dry spell.
Fiction book (1998) -
You never know when a dry spell could come.
-
You could really help end my dry spell.
-
It's a dry spell in my life.
-
But we're not out of the dry spell just yet.
Blog text (9) -
Hopefully, this will be like everything else, and this dry spell will end.
Blog text (17) -
This town has had a blessing of good fortune after a long dry spell.
-
You're just going through a dry spell.
-
Everyone has a dry spell, Ebert.
Synonyms
15
3.8
A long time without something people want, for example success
11
2.8
A period with very little rain in tropical areas
8
1.0
Lack of water or wetness in something
1
7.9
Very dry conditions because of little or no rain
A long time with little or no rain that makes the land very dry
A long period without rain that makes the land dry
A very dry area with little or no rain that makes plants hard to grow
How Long
Surface Forms
Morphology
The primary meaning 'a period with little or no rain' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'dry' (not wet) with 'spell' (a short period), and the extended sense 'a period without success' is a straightforward metaphorical extension of the same composition. This follows a standard adjective+noun pattern and has close parallels in many languages, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Dry spell comes from talking about the weather: a dry time with no rain and a spell meaning a short period. That's why people now use dry spell to mean a 'short time without success or activity'.