dry off

dry off (third-person singular simple present dries off, present participle drying off, simple past and past participle dried off)

1. (transitive) To make dry.
2. (intransitive) To become dry.
   • 1966, Bruce Brown, director, The Endless Summer:

     Drying off after the day of surfing in the afternoon summer sun of New Zealand, they remarked to each other how ironic their trip had been so far.

   • 2008 February 9, Kaminoge, “Welcoming in the Year of the Rat in Tansui and Hokutō Onsen 子年の旅行：淡水、北投温泉”, in A Curmudgeon Abroad‎^[1] (Blog), archived from the original on 18 March 2023‎^[2]:

     The weather was atrocious (driving rain, strong wind, bone-chilling cold), but that didn't prevent us from getting out of our car, and walking over to the lighthouse there. […]
     After taking some time to dry off while having a seafood lunch at the nearby Fuchi (Fuji) Fishing Harbor 富基漁港, we continued down the coast to the Temple of the Eighteen Lords 十八王公廟.

3. (transitive, agriculture) To cease milking a cow in preparation for calving.
   • 1986, Eberhart, R. J., “Management of Dry Cows to Reduce Mastitis”, in Journal of Dairy Science, volume 69, number 6, →DOI, pages 1721-1732:

     In an early study with cows producing very little milk at drying off, new infection rates were about equal whether cows were dried off abruptly or after a period of intermittent milking.

   • 2020 September 24, Pornpamol Pattamanont, Marcos Marcondes, Albert De Vries, “Advantages and Disadvantages of Various Dry-off Methods for Dairy Cows”, in edis.ifas.ufl.edu‎^[3], archived from the original on 11 August 2023:

     Thus, revenue from milk yield before dry-off is higher for cows that are abruptly dried off.

   • 2023 December 8 (last accessed), “Drying dairy cows off early”, in Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board‎^[4], archived from the original on 4 February 2023:

     If you are drying off more cows than normal you are likely to need to increase the area in which you normally keep dry cows.