Wet (pronounced whet)
(1) Moistened,
covered, or soaked with water or some other liquid.
(2) In
a liquid form or state.
(3) Something
that is or makes wet, as water or other liquid; moisture.
(4) Damp
weather; rain.
(5) In
historic (US prohibition era) use, a person in favor of allowing the
manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages; still used as a descriptor of
political candidates or activists in “dry” counties who advocate the status be
changed to “wet” but now substantially a retronym.
(6) To
make (something) wet, as by moistening or soaking (sometimes followed by
through or down).
(7) To
urinate on or in (applied usually to pets or children).
Pre 900:
From the Middle English wet wett &
wette (past participle of weten (to wet)), (wet, moistened), from
the Old English wǣtan (to wet, moisten, water), replacing
the Middle English weet, from the Old
English wǣt, from
the Proto-Germanic wētijaną (to
wet, make wet), from the primitive Indo-European wed- (water, wet), also the source of “water”. It was cognate with the Scots weit, weet, wat & wete (to wet), the Saterland Frisian wäitje (to wet; drench) & wäit (wet), the Icelandic væta (to wet) & votur (wet), the North Frisian wiat,
weet & wäit (wet), the Old
Frisian wēt, the Old Slavonic vedro (bucket), the Swedish and
Norwegian våt (wet), the Danish våd (wet), the Faroese vátur (“wet”) and the Old Norse vātr; akin to water. Wet is a noun, verb & adjective, wetter, wettability
& wetness are nouns, wetly an adverb, wetted & wetting are verbs, and wettish,
wetter, wettest & wettable are adjectives.
The noun plural is wets and the homophone whet (in accents with the
wine-whine merger).
Words
in some way related to wet include damp, drench, misty, drizzle, mizzle, humid,
dank, fog, mist, muggy, rain, slippery, snow, soak, sodden, soggy, stormy, dip,
douse, drench, hose, irrigate & liquid.
For all related words, context and the history of use define the
relationship (of extent, type etc). For
example, to drench or soak something implies saturate whereas moistening means
only some degree of dampness whereas to soak something suggests an immersion of
extended duration until saturated. With
reference to rain, which can always be referred to as wet weather, mizzle &
drizzle are expressions of graduation which suggest a lighter fall.
The multi-media US personality Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West (b 1977)) with Australian architect & model Bianca Censori (b 1995) in "Wet" themed top, Huacai Intercontinental Hotel,Beijing, China, September 2024.
The
word wet has proved convenient shorthand for many technical purposes including
in calligraphy and fountain pens where it referred to depositing a large amount
of ink from the nib or the feed. To
audio engineers, a “wet sound” recording is one to which the audio effects have
been applied. In aviation, it’s a
reference to having used the afterburners or water injection for increased
engine thrust (maximum wet thrust can be more than twice maximum dry thrust (afterburners
consuming huge quantities of fuel)). In
mining a “wet extraction” is a method using fluids whereas a dry extraction relies
on the employment of dry heat or fusion.
In soldering, to wet is to form an intermetallic bond between a solder
and a metal substrate. In bench-top
science, to wet is to employ a liquid (typically water) as a method of chemical
analysis. A wetback (also called a
wet-heater) was a form of heater which in addition to radiating heat to an
external space was also attached to the building’s hot water supply, thus
providing in whole or in part the energy used to maintain its temperature
(wetback was applied also from 1924 as a derogatory description of undocumented
Mexican immigrant to the US, a reference to their usually sodden state after crossing
the Rio Grande. There presumably have
been bed-wetters (involuntary urination while sleeping) since there have been beds but etymologists can find no instance of the term
bed-wetting prior to 1844 (it has also gained an idiomatic identity in politics
(qv)). In ecology, a wetland is an area where
water covers the soil, or is present either at or near the surface of the soil
all year or for varying periods of time during the year, including during the
growing season. The wet-nurse, though an
ancient profession, was first so described in the 1610s.
As
vulgar slang, as applied to women, it referred to the sexual arousal indicated
by the vulva being moistened with vaginal secretions (which may or may not be
related to the word “moist” being often rated as the most disliked in the
English language). The sexual slang
associated with men is the “wet dream” which most etymologists insist dates
only from 1851 although Middle English in the same sense had ludificacioun (an erotic dream), these
nocturnal adventures mentioned by Henry VIII in letters as proof of his
virility, called into doubt by his inability to be aroused by one of the wives
he didn’t wish to keep.
Wet is
widely applied in idiomatic use: To be “wet behind the ears” is to be
inexperienced; a “wet blanket” (from 1871, from use of blankets drenched in
water to smother fires (the phrase is attested in this literal sense from the 1660s))
is someone who spoils the fun of others by failing to join or disapproving of
their activities; to “wet one's whistle” is to have one or more alcoholic
drinks, an allusion to the idea intoxicants stimulate sociability; in politics
a “bed wetter” is a politician who reacts nervously to every passing
vicissitude, the label usually applied by those with safe seats to those
holding marginal electorates; to be “all wet” is (1) to be mistaken or (2) a
really bad idea, both used since the early 1920s (thought built on the earlier
sense of “ineffectual”, perhaps ultimately from the circa 1700 slang meaning
"drunken"; in computing there’s hardware and software and those
working in AI (artificial intelligence) refer to the human brain as wetware; In
crime and espionage, wet-work is a euphemistic reference to jobs involving
assassination and known also as a wet affair, a wet job & wet stuff, all phrases
alluding presumably to other people’s blood.
In historic UK slang, a wet was someone thought ineffectual, feeble or
with no strength of character, a weak or sentimental person (although this use
faded as the specific political construction (qv) which emerged in the 1980s
prevailed.
Dry (pronounced drahy)
(1)
Free from moisture or excess moisture; not moist; not wet.
(2) In
climatic matters, having or characterized by little or no rain.
(3)
Characterized by absence, deficiency, or failure of natural or ordinary
moisture.
(4) Not
under, in, or on water.
(5) Not
now containing or yielding water or other liquid; depleted or empty of liquid.
(6) In
dairying and other forms of animal-based milk production, a beast not yielding
milk (also used by analogy for oil wells).
(7) The
absence of lachrymosity, free from tears.
(8)
Drained or evaporated away.
(9)
Desiring drink; thirsty; causing thirst.
(10) A
food (typically toast) served or eaten without butter, conserves (jam, jelly),
honey etc.
(11) Of
food, lacking enough moisture or juice to be satisfying or succulent.
(12) Of
bread and bakery products, stale.
(13) Of
or relating to non-liquid substances or commodities (usually as dry goods, dry
measure; dry provisions etc).
(14) Of
wines (though now also used of beer, cocktails and other beverages), not sweet.
(15)
Characterized by or favoring prohibition of the manufacture and sale of
alcoholic liquors for use in beverages (mostly prohibition-era US but still a
term used in political debates in “dry” counties).
(16) As
a general descriptor, anything plain; bald; unadorned; something expressed in a
straight-faced, matter-of-fact way.
(17)
Dull; uninteresting:
(18)
Indifferent; cold; unemotional.
(19) An
unproductive period.
(20) Of
lumber, fully seasoned.
(21) Of
masonry construction, built without fresh mortar or cement.
(22) Of
a wall, ceiling, etc in an interior, finished without the use of fresh plaster.
(23) In
ceramics unglazed (if deliberate) or insufficiently glazed (if in error).
(24) In
art, hard and formal in outline, or lacking mellowness and warmth in color.
(25) To
make something free from moisture (or with its moisture substantially reduced.
(26)
Something tedious, barren, boring, tiresome, jejune.
(27) Of
wit, shrewd and keen in an impersonal, sarcastic, or laconic way.
(28) In
sheep farming, a ewe without a lamb after the mating season
(29) In
electronics, an imperfectly soldered electrical joint (where the solder has not
adhered to the metal), thus reducing conductance
(30) In
food preservation, to preserve (meat, vegetables, fruit etc) by removing the
moisture.
(31) In
chemistry as anhydrous, free from or lacking water in any state, regardless of
the presence of other liquids.
(32) In
audio engineering, a sound recording free from applied audio effects
(especially reverberations).
(33) In
animal breeding, an impotent male beast (applied especially to bulls).
(34) In
the rituals of certain Christian denominations, of a mass, service, or rite:
involving neither consecration nor communion.
In
acting (especially on stage, to forget one’s lines.
Pre
900: From the Middle English drye, dryge,
drüȝe & drie (without moisture, comparatively
free from water or fluid), from the Old English drӯge, from
the Proto-Germanic draugiz (source
also of the Middle Low German dröge,
the Middle Dutch druge, the Dutch droog, the Old High German truckan & trucchon, the German trocken and the Old Norse draugr), from the Germanic root dreug- (dry), from the primitive Indo-European
dherg (to strengthen; become hard),
from dher (to hold, support). Dry is a noun, verb and adjective, dryable,
drier, driest, dryer (or dryest) are adjectives, dryly an adverb, dries, drying
& dried are verbs and dryness is a noun.
The noun plural is drys or dries; the spelling drie is long obsolete.
The
meaning "barren" dates from the mid fourteenth century. As applied to “persons showing no emotion,
use emerged circa 1200; of humor or jests (delivered without show of pleasantry,
caustic, sarcastic), it’s of early fifteenth century origin (and implied in
dryly). The sense of
"uninteresting, tedious" was from the 1620s. Of wines, brandy etc which were "free
from sweetness or fruity flavor", use dates from circa 1700. Dry was first used of places prohibiting
alcoholic drink in 1870 (although, ad-hoc, there had been “dry feasts” &
“dry festivals” at which no alcohol was served since the late fifteenth century
and the colloquial dry (prohibitionist) entered US political slang in
1888. Prior to and during the
prohibition era in the US, the “drys” were those who supported prohibition and
in the isolated counties in the US where it’s still imposed, they remain a
(local) political force. Dry goods,
first so named in the 1560s were those dispensed in dry, not liquid,
measure. Dry land (that not under the
sea) as a concept (first in the law of real property) was from the early
thirteenth century. The dry-nurse (a
back formation from wet-nurse) was “one who attends and feeds a child but does
not suckle it", use dating from the 1590s.
The dry-run (rehearsal) dates from 1941 and was adopted by the military
and just about everyone else dates from 1941.
Dry ice "solid carbon dioxide" became available in 1925. Dry out in the drug addiction sense is from
1967.
The
first process of dry-cleaning (to clean clothes or textiles without using
water) appears to have been advertised first in 1817. The long-known "fungal decay in
timber" was in 1779 first described as dry rot, the figurative sense of
"concealed or unsuspected inward degeneration" dating from 1821. As a hair-drying device, the first use of
blow-dry appears to be a surprisingly late 1971. The process of preserving vegetables as
freeze-dried was a wartime development in the US, first announced as a patented
commercial process in 1946, the earlier sun-dried documented since the 1630s
although the technique dates from early human culture. The dry sense of humor (with apparent
unintentional humor or sarcasm) was noted first in the early fifteenth century,
dryly meaning "without moisture" in the 1560s and "without
affection" by the 1620s. The
drywall (plasterboard, sheetrock; gypsum-based manufactured panel used in
interior construction) was first sold in 1952, the earlier use (1778) of dry
wall meaning (a wall built without mortar).
A drier (used since the early fourteenth century as a surname) as “one
who dries and bleaches cloth," agent noun from the verb dry (that which
dries or is used in drying), dated from the 1520s. Dryer was used to describe a piece of
machinery in 1848 although the first drying-machine appears to have entered
service as early as 1819.
Wet
& Dry
Wet and
dry must be one of the most obvious and commonly cited dichotomies in English
and there are a number of noted examples.
Perilli's Dry, Intermediate and Wet tyres for use in Formula One.
In
motorsport, there are wet and dry tyres, the former (obviously) used when the
track is wet and the latter (also called “slicks”) when the surface is
dry. There are also various flavors of
“intermediate tread” tyres for conditions which are damp rather than wet. The difference is that dry tyres have no
tread (the grooves cut into the contact surface) pattern, the purpose of which
is to provide passages into which the water is forced to be expelled at the
sides. In the early 1970s, there were competitions with rules which demanded the use of street tyres (ie those used on
street cars as opposed to racing rubber) and some drivers discovered a unique
property of BF Goodrich’s square-shouldered T/A Radial was that if the tread
was (in advance) carefully worn down to a certain point, it would behave much
like a slick and last long enough not to have to be replaced for the duration
of most races (or until fuel-stop sessions in endurance events).
In the
law of real property, there are wet and dry leases, typically issued in
conjunction when handling riparian property.
The leases are often divided because it’s not uncommon for the one
commercial operation to have part of a business on land and part on water (such as a marina or
docking facility) and being very different, may have different operators. It’s thus normal commercial practice for a
head-lessor (perhaps a hotel operator) to enter into both a dry lease (for the
hotel property on land) and the wet lease (for whatever happens on the water)
and then sub-lease the wet lease to someone with the appropriate expertise.
Wet and
dry sandpaper is the tip of the sanding iceberg. Wet sanding, which is sanding with the
addition of water to act as a lubricant, is less abrasive than dry sanding, and
results in a smoother finish and whenever possible, it’s best to wet-sand when finishing a project. Dry sanding
removes more material, and smooths rough material more quickly and if the
ultimate in smoothness isn’t required, is the choice of many. So, wet sand for a super smooth finish but the two are of course frequently combined, dry
sanding first to remove most of the unwanted material before wet sanding.
Lindsay
Lohan in Cynthia Rowley wetsuit.
In diving, wetsuits and drysuits use different
engineering but operate on a similar principle.
Wetsuits use a layer of water (heated by the wearer's body) to provide insulation
while a drysuit uses a layer of air and is completely water-proof, stopping water from
coming into contact with the skin. Wetsuits
are made from rubber neoprene and are designed so the diver’s body heat is
retained but, unlike drysuits, are not waterproof. For that reason, a loose fitting wetsuit is
suitable only for warm-water conditions; skin-tight wetsuits are ideal for cold
water surf because they are warm and permit more movement than drysuits. Where the drysuit excels is in predominately
out-of-water conditions such as kayaking, paddle-boarding or water-based
photography. For extreme winter
conditions a drysuit is really the only choice because for warmth, additional
layers can be added beneath the suit, something not possible with a wetsuit.
In
northern Australia, the concepts of spring, summer, autumn (fall) & winter
really don’t make climatic sense the way defined seasons do in more temperate
regions. Instead, there’s just the wet
and the dry. The dry is long and hot, rain is rare and towards the end of the dry there is the “build-up” which unfolds over a month or more as
the air becomes warmer and heavier, the clouds in the evenings begin to darken
and the humidity becomes increasingly oppressive.
Locals call it the period of mango madness because as the fruit ripens, emotional
instability is apparent in some, mood swings induced by the inexorable rise in
heat and humidity. The wet usually
begins in late November or early December and is marked by heavy monsoonal
downpours, spectacular lightning, increased cyclone activity and a rise in
crimes of violence.
Makita 20 litre Wet Dry Vacuum Cleaner 1000W.
Wet and
dry vacuum cleaners are devices regarded with some awe because we’re all
schooled to take care to ensure water is kept way from electrical appliances
yet the manufacturers of these things encourage us to suck water into
them. They’re obviously of great utility
in handling wet floors or sodden carpets but can be used anywhere where
something wet is the problem and suction the answer such as cleaning hot tubs
or removing surface condensation.
During
the 1980s, in the corrosive, gut-wrenching world of Tory politics, the factions
became not quite formalized but certainly well-understood as the “wets and
drys”. The origin lay in the use of the
term “wet” which the right-wing fanatics (of which there were a few in the
Thatcher government) applied to their less hard-line colleagues (defined as
those not in favor of repealing the twentieth century). Wet was an old term of derision in historic
UK slang, someone thought ineffectual, feeble or with no strength of character,
a weak or sentimental person. In an
effort to retaliate, the wets labelled the fanatics “the drys” but this
backfired because the drys loved the idea and were soon describing themselves
thus' presumable because while "a bit wet" had long been an insult, "dry humor" had always been thought clever and sophisticated.
