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Glite Dictionary
to rough-dry

to rough-dry

7.7
Hang wet clothes without smoothing or ironing, leaving them a little wrinkled
  • phrasal verb
translation icon : secar al aire
  • After washing the clothes, I decided to rough-dry them to save time.

But yeah, BRB OK, I've rough dried it.

Examples

  • She rough-dried the towels instead of ironing them for a more casual look.

  • To save energy, we often rough-dry our laundry and hang it outside.

  • OK, so I've like rough dried it so you can see or see it's a little bit wet.

How Smooth

to iron
72 1.0
drip-dry
1 3.7
to rough-dry
7.7

Surface Forms

rough-dry infinitive
rough-dried past
rough-dried past participle
rough-drying present participle
rough-dries third person singular

Morphology

rough-dry = rough + dry (transparent) = rough + dry

The verb is a straightforward compound of 'rough' + 'dry' meaning 'to dry in a rough/unsmoothed way', which is predictable from its parts.

Etymology

Rough-dry is made from rough ('not smooth') and dry ('remove water'), so it literally means to dry something without making it smooth. That's why to rough-dry laundry is to let clothes dry a little wrinkled or crumpled, often to save time or energy.