Waterless describes a place with no water — no water for people or animals to drink, nothing to find, dry all the way through. 'A waterless desert', 'waterless plains'. It is a strong word, and a fairly literary one: you meet it in books, travel writing and stories more than in daily talk. In ordinary speech people just say 'dry', or 'there's no water there'. The word has a second life in shops and technology, and this one is growing fast: 'waterless' before a product means the thing works without using water. Waterless car wash, waterless shampoo, waterless cooking, waterless toilet, waterless urinal. Here the word is a selling point — it says 'this saves water', which people care about now. This use is completely modern, and it is probably the one you will meet most often. So notice the two feelings living in one word. Applied to a place, it is bad: nothing can live there. Applied to a product, it is good: clever, saving something precious. The word itself is neutral — it only says 'without water'; the good or bad comes from what you attach it to.

無水的、乾涸無水的（形容地方）；用在產品上則指「免水式」，例如免水洗車、乾洗髮、免沖水馬桶。