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Single English word for dying of thirst, like starvation. Couldn't think of one, how does Exsiccated/Exsiccation sound? (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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Exsiccated/Exsiccation - was trying to think of a single English term that could be the equivalent of starvation; like if someone was dying of thirst, but I felt parched isn't weighted enough to fulfill the gravity of it.

In latin exsiccare meant to dry up completely, so that's how we got here I guess.

Thoughts? Is there a term I have forgotten that fits what I was looking for?

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[–] 3 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Eskimos have so many words for snow, I'm not surprised English lacks a word for dying of thirst but have about two dozen words ways of describing how wet you are.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    Inuit is an agglutinating language, so forms "words" which express entire sentences.

    The lesson to learn from this is that the concept of "a word" is not necessarily comparable between two different languages and is a bit arbitrary.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago

    English has far more words for snow than the Inuit languages have. And as others have said dehydrate and it's conjugations serve this purpose in English, with dessicate and it's conjugations for the remains.

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