Definition of "drying up" [drying up]

• Present participle of dry up. (verb)

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• "It may be produced by obstructed evacuations, such as a sudden check of perspiration, stop-page of the menses in females, or the drying up of ulcers, &c."
• "The first performance of the afternoon rivalled the successes of the morning, and although Miss Rennsdale was detained at home, thus drying up the single source of cash income developed before lunch, Maurice Levy appeared, escorting Marjorie Jones, and paid coin for two admissions, dropping the money into Sam's hand with a careless -- nay, a contemptuous -- gesture."
• "Cotton has to be watered five times before it is gathered in, and the four million tons of it grown each year in Uzbekistan has led to the drying up of the Aral Sea at the other end of the great Sur-Darya River that rises here from its mountain tributaries."