A dry etching method in which a plasma of an etching gas is generated and a magnetic material is dry-etched using a mask material made of a non-organic material, wherein an alcohol having at least one hydroxyl group is used as the etching gas. The alcohol used as the etching gas has one hydroxyl group such as an alcohol selected from the group including methanol (CH.sub.3OH), ethanol (C.sub.2H.sub.5OH) and propanol (C.sub.3H.sub.7OH).