Definition of "parching"

Who can unpitying see the flowery race, / Shed by the morn, their new-flush'd bloom resign, / Before the parching beam?

1727, James Thomson, “Summer”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768

The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom. […] Drifts of yellow vapour, fiery, parching, stinging, filled the air.

1892, James Yoxall, chapter 5, in The Lonely Pyramid

The series of these great events began in the year 1333, fifteen years before the plague broke out in Europe: they first appeared in China. Here a parching drought, accompanied by famine, commenced in the tract of country watered by the rivers Kiang and Hoai.

1888, J. F. C. Hecker, “Causes.-Spread.”, in B. G. Babington, transl., The Black Death and the Dancing Mania‎, page 24

I began also to feel very hungry, as not having eaten for twenty-four hours; and worse than that, there was a parching thirst and dryness in my throat, and nothing with which to quench it.

1898, J. Meade Falkner, chapter 4, in Moonfleet, London, Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934

Proceed to nearest canteen and there annex liquor stores. March! Tramp, tramp, tramp the boys are […] parching.

1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […]

I have already told how we parched sunflower seed; and that I used two or three double-handfuls of seed to a parching. I used two parchings of sunflower seed for one mess of four-vegetables-mixed.

1917, Studies in the Social Sciences, number 9, page 20

Squalid youths with ghastly grin,In hollow bitter roots shall bring,Urine of the unsav'ry goat,To quell the parchings of thy throat.

1797, Icelandic Poetry: Or The Edda of Sæmund, page 95