dry run
The earliest known usage of dry run dates to 1941 and is originally US Army slang for practice or dress rehearsal. But why dry? It either refers to booze or sex.
Dry has been associated with the abstention from alcohol since the 15th century and was a common term during the Prohibition years of the 1920s and 30s. It is certainly possible that a military dry run lacks the kick or rush of actual combat, much like a dry drink lacks the kick of alcohol.
The possible sexual connection is from the term dry fuck, or frottage, the rubbing of a couple’s bodies together while clothed. The term dates to at least 1938 when it appears in Henry Miller’s Tropic of Capricon, a book familiar to many soldiers of the era due to its sexual content:
Maybe you’ll...get a dry fuck.
The first appearance of dry run in print is from American Speech, October 1941 in an article about army slang:
DRY RUN. To practice; a dress rehearsal.
(Sources: Historical Dictionary of American Slang; Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)
Copyright 1997-2007, by David Wilton
