English
desiccation
Desiccation comes from Latin desicco ‘to dry up, drain dry, desiccate’, and goes back to siccus.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsiccus1‘dry’
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsiccō1‘dry up’
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEdesicco2‘to dry up, drain dry, desiccate’
- Late Latinc. 200–600 CEdesiccatio2
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600dessiccation2
- Englishearliest quotation 1968desiccation2
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, Latin desicco
- 2 Wiktionary, English desiccation
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1968, M.W. Service, The Ecology of the Immature Stages of Aedes detritus: “The most important mortality affecting the larval population was…”.
Earlier history uncertain. See Wiktionary.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsiccusWiktionary, Latin desicco‘dry’
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsiccōWiktionary, Latin desicco‘dry up’
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEdesiccoWiktionary, English desiccation‘to dry up, drain dry, desiccate’
- Late Latinc. 200–600 CEdesiccatioWiktionary, English desiccation
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600dessiccationWiktionary, English desiccation
- Englishearliest quotation 1968desiccationWiktionary, English desiccation. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1968, M.W. Service, The Ecology of the Immature Stages of Aedes detritus: “The most important mortality affecting the larval population was…”
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *sek- ‘to cut, cut off, sever’
saw, sex, risk, ship, sign, sexual, section, seal, segment, insect, sawyer, scarlet, sax, het, shingle, dissect, sickle, scythe, seg, sedge, sich, sigil, sain, brassica, 64 more
through Latin siccus ‘dry’
Today it means
noun The state or process of being desiccated.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “desiccation”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Latin desicco. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Latin siccus / desiccation