drydown means the phase of a perfume where the top note gives way to the base note. It carries an Arena rating of 1393, earned across 5 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, drydown ranks #1,638 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words, #2,959 of 17,149 for Most Exacting Words, #5,032 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #5,442 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words.
Why “drydown” is a great word
DRYDOWN — [Noun] The final, lasting phase of a perfume's evaporation, where the top notes fade and the base notes become dominant. From the verb phrase 'dry down', meaning to dry or evaporate gradually, with 'dry' from Old English drȳge ("free from moisture") and 'down' indicating a process of completion or settling. Unlike a "top note" (the volatile, initial impression) or a "base note" (the foundational scent components themselves), drydown is the evolved character, the scent's true confession after the initial performance. It is the weathered cedar emerging from the citrus burst, the intimate musk rising through the vanquished bergamot, the ghost of amber left on skin hours after the wearer has left the room—the quiet truth of a thing, revealed only with time and exposure.
Etymology
From dry + down and deverbal from dry down.
noun
- The phase of a perfume where the top note gives way to the base note.
- The physiologically mature phase in the ripening of a crop, where the fruit attains the desired trait of desiccation, suiting it for harvest and storage (e.g. maize, soybean).
- A period where the habitat of a hydrophile organism is desiccated.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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