- soak
- soak vb Soak, saturate, drench, steep, impregnate, sop, waterlog can mean to permeate or be permeated with or as if with water.Soak suggests immersion in a liquid so that the substance absorbs the moisture and usually becomes thoroughly wetted, softened, or dissolved{
soak a sponge in water
}{the blotter soaked up the spilled ink
}{soak out the dirt from soiled clothes
}{soak tapioca before cooking it
}In its extended use the term implies a comparable immersion of one thing in another so that the latter is taken up by or enters into the very being of the former and becomes a part of it{he soaked himself in the poetry of the great romanticists
}{the shadowy copse was soaked in piny sweetness, golden and dim— Rose Macaulay
}{soaked in the best prejudices and manners of his class— Galsworthy
}Saturate (see also PERMEATE) may or may not imply a soaking; distinctively it stresses absorption (as of a liquid) up to a point where no more can be absorbed; thus, the air is said to be saturated when it can retain no more moisture in the form of vapor; one's clothes may be described as saturated when they are so damp that the addition of further moisture would make them dripping wet; a solution (as of salt in water) is said to be saturated when the liquid has dissolved as much of the substance as it can retain under the circumstances (as of heat and atmospheric pressure). Consequently in its extended use saturate usually implies a becoming imbued or infused with something in exactly the right measure or to the most useful degree{to a mind not thoroughly saturated with the tolerating maxims of the Gospel— Burke
}{the entire poem is saturated with imagination
}{saturated with experience of a particular class of materials, an expert intuitively feels whether a newly reported fact is probable or not— James
}Drench basically implies a thorough wetting by liquid and especially rainwater{they were in an open buggy and were drenched to the skin— Cather
}In its extended use the term carries an implication of being soaked or saturated by something that pours or is poured down upon one{the solid mountains shone . . . drenched in empyrean light— Wordsworth
}{the new life with which it drenches the spirits— Shelley
}Steep implies a complete immersion and soaking in a liquid; it usually suggests the extraction of the essence of one thing so that it becomes part and parcel of the other; thus, one steeps tea leaves in boiling water in order to make the beverage tea. In extended use the acquirement of the qualities of one thing by a process suggestive of such steeping is often implied{epistles . . . steeped in the phraseology of the Greek mysteries— Inge
}{language simple and sensuous and steeped in the picturesque imagery of what they saw and felt— Lowes
}but often the term means little more than to envelop with or as if with the quality (as color or light) shed from or emanated by something else{her tall spars and rigging steeped in a bath of red-gold— Conrad
}{the world was all steeped in sunshine— D. H. Lawrence
}Impregnate (see also PERMEATE) commonly carries a suggestion of soaking in something other than water; it implies the interpenetration of one thing by another until the former is everywhere imbued with the latter{impregnate rubber with sulphur
}{when my mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian ether— Bos well
}{this poem, everywhere impregnated with original excellence— Wordsworth
}Sop usually applies to food soaked in meat juices or wine{sop bread in gravy
}{serve cake sopped in sherry and covered with a soft custard
}but it may apply also to something (as soil) that is heavily soaked with liquid{sopping wet clothes
}{sop plants with too much water
}Waterlog suggests a thorough soaking or drenching that makes a thing either useless or too heavy and sodden (as for floating or cultivating){a waterlogged rowboat
}{soil waterlogged by lack of proper drainage
}soak n *drunkard, inebriate, alcoholic, dipsomaniac, sot, toper, tosspot, tippler
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
