parching

adj

1. Causing something or someone to parch; extremely drying.

   “Who can unpitying see the flowery race, / Shed by the morn, their new-flush'd bloom resign, / Before the parching beam?”

   “The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom.[…]Drifts of yellow vapour, fiery, parching, stinging, filled the air.”

   “The series of these great events began in the year 1333, fifteen years before the plague broke out in Europe: they first appeared in China. Here a parching drought, accompanied by famine, commenced in the tract of country watered by the rivers Kiang and Hoai.”

   “I began also to feel very hungry, as not having eaten for twenty-four hours; and worse than that, there was a parching thirst and dryness in my throat, and nothing with which to quench it.”

2. Very thirsty; parched.

   “Proceed to nearest canteen and there annex liquor stores. March! Tramp, tramp, tramp the boys are […] parching.”

verb

1. (form-of, gerund, participle, present)present participle and gerund of parch

noun

1. The process of parching or roasting something, such as corn.

   “I have already told how we parched sunflower seed; and that I used two or three double-handfuls of seed to a parching. I used two parchings of sunflower seed for one mess of four-vegetables-mixed.”

2. The condition of being parched; absolute dryness.

   “Squalid youths with ghastly grin, In hollow bitter roots shall bring, Urine of the unsav'ry goat, To quell the parchings of thy throat.”