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Chris -- 2025-05-10
This is extremely common in Australia. In fact probably more common than its proper usage. e.g People will say “I dry reached after smelling it” or “I was dry reaching” meaning to gag to the point of vomiting. I assume this stems from the verb to reach; as in a quick forward motion, similar to that of gagging (dry retching).
From http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dry_reach
dry reach (plural dry reaches) 1. A dry or no longer active branch or reach (i.e. segment) of a river. “Simulations indicated that seasonally variable releases would produce surface flow 5.4 to 8.5 km below the dam in a previously dry reach”. http://www.agu.org/pubs/abs/wr/1999WR900233/tmp.htmlOffline