Soaking

How to spell soaking

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce soaking

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does soaking mean?

1. verbThe act of leaving something immersed in liquid so it absorbs the liquid or so dirt loosens.
2. adjectiveExtremely wet, as though saturated with liquid.

Soaking in a sentence

• verb

  Soaking the dried beans overnight makes them cook far faster.

• adjective

  He came in from the storm with soaking wet hair and dripping shoes.

• verb

  A long soaking in warm water loosened the dried paint from the brushes.

• adjective

  The towels were left out in the rain and were now soaking and heavy.

Where does soaking come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the verb 'soak', which comes from the Old English socian, meaning to steep or lie immersed in liquid. That verb belonged to the same family of words as sucan, the ancestor of modern 'suck', and the underlying idea in both was liquid being drawn up or absorbed. The form 'soaking' is simply soak with the -ing ending, which English uses to make both present participles and descriptive adjectives, so 'soaking' can name the action of steeping something or describe something that is thoroughly wet. The word has stayed close to its original sense for over a thousand years, and its spelling is mercifully phonetic; the only mild trap is the silent letter that does not appear, since the long 'oa' carries the vowel without any 'silent w' or doubled consonant.

How the word is built

• soak (from Old English socian: to steep in liquid)
• -ing (present participle / adjective suffix)