Meaning & use
dehydrate
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Meanings
verbintransitive
To lose too much water from your body, making you weak or ill.
Grammar: No object; often used with 'from' or in the passive: 'dehydrate from the heat'.
Patterns
- dehydrate from something
- become dehydrated
If you exercise in hot weather, you can dehydrate quickly.
The hikers began to dehydrate after hours without water.
He was so dehydrated that he had to go to the hospital.
verbtransitive
To remove water from food or another substance, usually to preserve it.
Grammar: Takes an object: 'dehydrate the fruit'.
Patterns
- dehydrate something
- dehydrated food
We dehydrated the apples to make healthy snacks.
The company dehydrates vegetables and sells them in packets.
Dehydrated meals are light and easy to carry on camping trips.
Word forms
| third person singular | dehydrates |
|---|---|
| past tense | dehydrated |
| past participle | dehydrated |
| -ing form | dehydrating |
Common combinations
- dehydrate quickly
- Children can dehydrate quickly when they have a fever.
- become dehydrated
- You will become dehydrated if you don't drink enough water.
- severely dehydrated
- The patient was severely dehydrated and needed fluids.
- dehydrated food
- Dehydrated food is popular with backpackers.
Synonyms and how they differ
- dry
- Dry is a general word for removing moisture; dehydrate often suggests a deliberate process or a dangerous bodily state.
- desiccate
- Desiccate is a technical term for drying something completely; dehydrate is more common in everyday and medical contexts.
Opposites
Word family
- dehydration noun
- The condition of losing too much water from the body, or the process of removing water.
- dehydrated adjective
- Having lost water; often used of a person or food.
Commonly confused: dehydrate or rehydrate?
dehydrate vs rehydrate
Rehydrate means to put water back into something or to drink fluids after dehydration; dehydrate means the opposite.
Practice
After running in the heat, she began to ______ and had to sit down.
Choose one answer.
Dehydrate means to lose too much water from the body, which fits the context of feeling weak after running in the heat. 'Rehydrate' means to drink fluids to restore water, 'hydrate' means to add water, and 'dry' is about removing moisture from objects, not a bodily condition.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “dehydrate”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.