ABSORB • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Absorb

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/əbzˈɔrb/ Listen

verb

Absorb v. t. (past & past part. absorbed; pres. part. absorbing)

1.

To swallow up; to engulf; to overwhelm; to cause to disappear as if by swallowing up; to use up; to include. "Dark oblivion soon absorbs them all." "The large cities absorb the wealth and fashion."

2.

To suck up; to drink in; to imbibe; as a sponge or as the lacteals of the body.

3.

To engross or engage wholly; to occupy fully; as, absorbed in study or the pursuit of wealth.

4.

To take up by cohesive, chemical, or any molecular action, as when charcoal absorbs gases. So heat, light, and electricity are absorbed or taken up in the substances into which they pass.

Synonyms: To Absorb, Engross, Swallow up, Engulf. These words agree in one general idea, that of completely taking up. They are chiefly used in a figurative sense and may be distinguished by a reference to their etymology. We speak of a person as absorbed (lit., drawn in, swallowed up) in study or some other employment of the highest interest. We speak of a person as ebgrossed (lit., seized upon in the gross, or wholly) by something which occupies his whole time and thoughts, as the acquisition of wealth, or the attainment of honor. We speak of a person (under a stronger image) as swallowed up and lost in that which completely occupies his thoughts and feelings, as in grief at the death of a friend, or in the multiplied cares of life. We speak of a person as engulfed in that which (like a gulf) takes in all his hopes and interests; as, engulfed in misery, ruin, etc. "That grave question which had begun to absorb the Christian mind the marriage of the clergy." "Too long hath love engrossed Britannia's stage, And sunk to softness all our tragic rage." "Should not the sad occasion swallow up My other cares?" "And in destruction's river Engulf and swallow those."

See images of 'Absorb'

Etymology of 'Absorb'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Absorb" Quotes from Famous Books

... of perspiration. In addition to these acids, there is another simultaneously generated—the caprylic, but it does not unpleasantly affect the olfactory nerve. The casein also injuriously affects the fatty constituents of the butter; under its influence they absorb oxygen from the air, and become converted into strong-smelling compounds. The washing of butter is intended to free it from the casein and unaltered cream, and the more perfectly it is freed from those impurities the better will be its flavor, and the longer it will remain without ...

— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron

... warm the greased or spotted part of the book or paper, and then press upon it pieces of blotting-paper, one after another, so as to absorb as much of the grease as possible. Have ready some fine clear essential oil of turpentine heated almost to a boiling state, warm the greased leaf a little, and then, with a soft clean brush, apply the heated turpentine to both sides ...

— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... increase our police force, or deport him and sustain a strictly white man's country. If we deport him as fast as Europeans come in, we would soon be done with him as a factor in politics and labor; but as yet we have no place to send him. Through industrial and commercial relations we will soon absorb Mexico and the Central American States, and upon the completion of the Panama Canal we can expand rapidly into South America, where there is a vast area of unsettled country that would make an ideal ...

— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott

... dead depended upon material food. But it [30] is probable that the real belief in ancient European societies was much like the belief as it exists in modern Japan. The dead are not supposed to consume the substance of the food, but only to absorb the invisible essence of it. In the early period of ancestor-worship the food-offerings were large; later on they were made smaller and smaller as the idea grew up that the spirits required but little sustenance of even the most ...

— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... and this with the express pledge that they should be back by a time specified, so as to be prepared for this very campaign. It is hardly necessary to say they were not returned. That department continued to absorb troops to no purpose to the end of the war. This left McPherson so weak that the part of the plan above indicated had to be changed. He was therefore brought up to Chattanooga and moved from there on a road to the right of Thomas—the two coming ...

— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

Copyright © 2026 Diccionario ingles.com