Sponge

How to spell sponge

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce sponge

What does sponge mean?

1. nounA soft, porous object, natural or synthetic, used for soaking up liquid and for cleaning.
2. verbTo live off the generosity of others without contributing in return.

Sponge in a sentence

• noun

  She wiped the spilled coffee with a damp sponge.

• verb

  He tends to sponge off his flatmates instead of paying his share.

• noun

  The new sponge in the kitchen sink soaked up the water instantly.

• verb

  She refused to sponge on her parents once she had a steady job.

Where does sponge come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the ancient Greek spongos (also spongia), the name for the soft, porous sea creature whose absorbent skeleton was harvested and used for washing and bathing. The Greek term passed into Latin as spongia, and Old English borrowed it early as sponge, used for both the sea animal and the cleaning object made from it. The everyday verb sense, meaning to soak something up, grew naturally from the way a real sponge draws in water, and the figurative idea of a person who lives off others by sponging followed in the same vein. The spelling holds a quiet trap: the soft /j/ ending is written with the letters 'ge', so writers who spell by sound may be tempted to put 'sponj' or 'spunge'; remembering the Greek spongos with its hard 'g' helps fix the correct letters in place. The same root also gives us the scientific word for the sponge phylum, Porifera notwithstanding, and the cooking term sponge cake, named for its light, absorbent texture.

How the word is built

• spong- (from Greek spongos: a sponge)
• -e (English spelling that softens the g to a /j/ sound)