How to Use desiccation in a Sentence
desiccation
noun-
While most of the desiccation resulted from the calamitous loss of Mars’s atmosphere, the planet has kept some of its water.
—Charlie Wood, Popular Science, 12 Nov. 2020
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Since then, many penguins have nested in the open, exposing themselves to heatstroke and their eggs and chicks to desiccation and predators.
—Ryan Truscott, Smithsonian Magazine, 1 Dec. 2022
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What of the worlds that lie between slime and velvet, collapse and refusal, succulence and desiccation?
—Ligaya Mishan Esther Choi, New York Times, 8 May 2023
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Many of the organisms dwelling near the surface were had adapted to UV radiation and desiccation.
—Charlotte Hu, Discover Magazine, 26 Feb. 2018
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According to Miller, a few researchers believe some species of tardigrades might even be able to survive desiccation for up to a century.
—William Herkewitz, Popular Mechanics, 21 Aug. 2020
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In the lab, scientists exposed the microbes to desiccation, UV exposure, cold and pH extremes.
—Bill Andrews, Discover Magazine, 21 May 2014
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The other common pathway is desiccation, which requires the body to remain exposed to the landscape for a period of time before burial.
—Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 6 Jan. 2023
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In general, as the atmosphere warms with climate change, the air gets thirstier and thirstier, leading to further desiccation.
—WIRED, 10 Aug. 2023
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In the experiment, the rotifers found safety from parasites after three weeks of desiccation or 30 metres of flight.
—Ed Yong, Discover Magazine, 29 Jan. 2010
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Perhaps the Chinchorro concluded that the dead were supposed to linger, that desiccation meant something important, that the preservation of bodies would mollify the souls of the dead.
—Maggie Shipstead Anthony Cotsifas, New York Times, 10 May 2023
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Whatever the recipe, the primary concern is to protect your phyllo from desiccation.
—Charlotte Druckman, WSJ, 25 Aug. 2022
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Conventional oats tend to be sprayed for weed control upon planting and then again pre-harvest for desiccation, leaving herbicide residue in consumer products.
—Errol Schweizer, Forbes, 31 Jan. 2022
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Scientists had previously hypothesized that several frog and toad species use foam to protect eggs from desiccation, but few studies had tested the idea.
—Sandrine Ceurstemont, Scientific American, 9 Sep. 2021
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The enduring dry conditions have left woods and grasslands at near-historic levels of desiccation, a concern for fire officials still waiting for seasonal rainfalls to put an end to wildfire season.
—Dominic Fracassa, SFChronicle.com, 11 Dec. 2020
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But at that time, the gland only made a fatty acid solvent similar to the hydrocarbons that almost all insects make in their cuticles to prevent desiccation and to communicate chemically.
—Viviane Callier, Scientific American, 27 Sep. 2023
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Trees, especially conifers, in drier regions often need water during the winter to prevent desiccation.
—oregonlive, 14 Aug. 2021
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The rain brought by Hilary was a sharp departure from weather patterns in California, where most precipitation falls in winter and where summers often bring extreme desiccation.
—Thomas Fuller, New York Times, 21 Aug. 2023
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Boothby says that tardigrade cells’ ability to survive desiccation could be the key to stabilizing vaccines and pharmaceuticals so that they can be stored at room temperature, instead of relying on fridges and freezers.
—Kate Golembiewski, Discover Magazine, 8 June 2023
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One cluster of grapes has shriveled into raisins, and several other bunches show considerable desiccation.
—Washington Post, 10 Feb. 2022
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Most animals mummified by the ancient Egyptians underwent evisceration (the removal of their organs) and desiccation (drying out of the bodily fluids) after death.
—Meilan Solly, Smithsonian Magazine, 10 May 2022
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Egg desiccation was treated as a threshold trait, but the possibility of phenotypic plasticity or evolution of the threshold was not considered.
—Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 29 Apr. 2010
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The sedimentary strata of lower Mount Sharp might record both the planet’s early environment and the chemical changes that accompanied its subsequent desiccation.
—The Economist, 16 Dec. 2020
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The site also preserves ripple marks and some desiccation cracks in the sandstone which indicate moisture levels fluctuated significantly.
—Gemma Tarlach, Discover Magazine, 29 Jan. 2020
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Fecal samples are usually found in dry caves, desert areas, frozen areas, or waterlogged environments (like bogs), where desiccation, freezing, and similar processes preserve the fecal matter for posterity.
—Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 20 May 2022
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This encapsulation prevents the unfolding, rupture, breakage, and/or aggregation of desiccation-sensitive biological material.
—Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 7 Sep. 2022
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'desiccation.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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