What does exsiccating mean?
"Exsiccating" is the present participle of the verb "to exsiccate," which means to remove all moisture from something — to dry it out thoroughly and deliberately. The word belongs chiefly to formal and scientific registers, appearing most often in botany, where collectors speak of exsiccating plant specimens before preserving them in herbaria. It can also be used figuratively to describe anything that dries up or loses vitality under parching conditions, such as soil cracked by months without rain. Though far less familiar than its close relative "desiccate," which comes from the same Latin root siccare, meaning "to dry," exsiccating carries a precise, technical flavor that suits laboratory manuals, field guides, and academic prose. For general purposes, simpler synonyms usually serve better, but the word remains valuable where an exact, clinical description of drying is wanted, and it lends any sentence a distinctly scholarly air.
verbPresent participle and gerund of "exsiccate": to dry out thoroughly, especially by removing all moisture from something, typically in a laboratory or botanical context.
- To remove moisture from something completely; to dry out thoroughly, especially as a deliberate process applied to specimens, substances, or materials.
- (Medicine, rare) To cause excessive dryness of body tissues or fluids.
"The botanists spent the afternoon exsiccating specimens collected from the alpine meadow."
"The curators are carefully exsiccating the algae samples before mounting them on archival paper."
"In arid climates, the wind acts almost like a laboratory, exsiccating anything left exposed to it."
Before modern herbaria relied on fancy freeze-driers, Victorian botanists were exsiccating plants — pressing them between blotters to suck out every last drop of water so they'd survive centuries in a museum drawer.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of exsiccating
The word derives from the Latin verb exsiccare, formed from ex-, meaning "out," plus siccare, "to dry," itself from siccus, meaning "dry." It entered English in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century, alongside related forms such as "exsiccation." Its closest sibling is "desiccate," built from the same root with the intensifying prefix de- rather than ex-, and both remain in use, though "desiccate" has become vastly more common. Other relatives include "siccative," a term for a substance that promotes drying, used especially of paints and varnishes.
Word family
Usage notes
Formal and technical in register; ordinary speakers would almost always use "drying," "dehydrating," or "desiccating." Most often encountered in botany and herbarium science, where pressed dried specimens are described as having been exsiccated. The word is rare enough that it may be unfamiliar even to educated readers outside scientific fields.
Don't confuse with
"Desiccating" is by far the more common word for drying out, while "exsiccating" is a rarer synonym used chiefly in scientific or technical contexts; they share the same Latin root but differ in frequency and register.
"Excising" means cutting out or removing surgically, whereas "exsiccating" means removing moisture.