Absorbed

How to spell absorbed

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce absorbed

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does absorbed mean?

1. verbPast tense of absorb: drew in or soaked up a liquid, energy, or substance.
2. adjectiveCompletely engaged or mentally occupied by something.

Absorbed in a sentence

• verb

  The dry soil quickly absorbed the morning rain.

• adjective

  She was so absorbed in her work that she missed the lunch break.

• verb

  The thick foam absorbed most of the noise from the road.

• adjective

  The children sat absorbed in the film for the whole afternoon.

Where does absorbed come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb absorbere, which combined ab-, meaning 'from' or 'away', with sorbere, meaning 'to suck in' or 'to swallow down'. The literal Latin sense was therefore to swallow something up entirely, the same image we still keep when we say a sponge swallows up water. English took the verb 'absorb' from Latin, partly by way of Old French absorber, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and 'absorbed' is simply its past form. The figurative meaning, being so swallowed up by a book or a task that you notice nothing else, grew naturally out of that image of being taken in completely. The same sorbere root survives in the chemistry term 'adsorb' and in 'sorbet', and the single b before the -ed ending is the small spelling point worth remembering, since there is no doubling here.

How the word is built

• ab- (from, away)
• sorb (to suck in, swallow)
• -ed (past tense / participle suffix)