WINE, Vinum, a brisk, agreeable, spirituous, and cordial liquor, drawn from vegetable bodies, and fermented. Thomas Dyche & William Pardon, A New General English Dictionary (1735) offers this entry for dry as an adjective:ĭRY (A.) That has none, or very little Moisture also a Cant Word for one that acts slily or cunningly, that is very reserved, and watches all Opportunities to say or do something for his own Advantage also when Wine by reason of Age is much dephlegmated, and its watry Taste considerably abated, or quite destroyed, it is said to be dry.Īlthough the focus of the relevant definition here is on dephlegmation (as in the third edition of Bailey's dictionary), the entry does connect dryness to an abatement in the wine's taste-albeit its "watry Taste"-not to an abatement in sweetness.Įphraim Chambers, Cyclopaedia: Or, An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, second edition (1738), mentions dryness as a quality of wine twice in a lengthy discussion of the topic: So Bailey in 1751 seems to be contrasting dry with flavorful, not with sweet. RACY a Wine that still retains its rich Flavour this Word is used in Distinction to what is called a dry Wine.
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Update (December 30, 2021): A further look into early uses of 'dry' and its possible seventeenth-century antecedentsĪnother wine term that appears in Bailey's third edition is racy: Interestingly, neither Bailey in 1726 nor the author of In Vino Veritas in 1698 makes any explicit connection between dry and the meaning "free from sweetness or fruity flavor" ascribed to it by Etymology Online (and noted in user 66974's answer) as dating to 1700. It would seem from Bailey's discussion that people in the early 1700s applied the term dry to wine that, because it was older, contained less "superfluous" water.
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The Palats of our Customers have more different gusts than the Moon has Figures one must (as he calls it) have a dry Wine, another a rough Wine t'other a smooth mellow Wine, but most agree in a very strong Wine which we know how to strengthen, with Brandy, or Spirits, which are cheaper, and to lengthen it for the Fame of one extraordinary high priz'd Pipe of Canary (we buy) sells us twenty, and yet we perswade, 'tis all of that very Pipe and so of Pontac (when in vogue) and of other Wines, (now) as Barcelona, Gallicia, Lisbon, &c.Īs for the rationale for using dry in this way, Nathan Bailey, An Universal Etymological English Dictionary, third edition (1726) offers this brief rationale in an entry devoted to dry in the wine sense:ĭRY (spoken of Wine) a Wine that by reason of Age, is pretty well dephlegmated, or has lost much of its waterish Quality.Įlsewhere in this dictionary, Bailey identifies dephlegmated as a "Chymical Term" meaning "cleared from Phlegm or Water" and dephlegmation as "a Separation of Phlegm or superfluous Water." The second edition of Bailey's dictionary (1724), however, lacks the wine-related entry for dry. From In Vino Veritas: or, A Conference Betwixt Chip the Cooper, and Dash the Drawer (Being Both Boozy) Discovering Some Secrets in the Wine-Brewing Trade (1698)-one year earlier than the oldest instance cited by the OED (as reported in Greybeard's answer):ĭash. A search of the Early English Books Online database of books from 1450 to 1700 yields one instance of the phrase "dry wine" from a book published before 1700.
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