absorb
Formsabsorbs, absorbing, absorbed
- 1To soak up or take in a liquid or gas, as a sponge does or as body tissues draw in nutrients.
The bandage is designed to absorb fluid from the wound.
The small intestine absorbs nutrients from digested food.
Similarassimilate
- 2To take in and understand information or ideas so thoroughly that they become part of your knowledge.
Young children absorb the rules of their first language without formal teaching.
He absorbed every detail of the briefing before the meeting.
Similarassimilate, digest, internalize, grasp, learn
- 3To engage someone's attention or interest so completely that nothing else is noticed.
The intricate puzzle absorbed the whole team for an afternoon.
A demanding project can absorb a researcher entirely.
Similarengross, occupy, engage, captivate, preoccupy
Oppositebore
Note
The engrossing sense is at home in the passive with in. Edgar Rice Burroughs's The Son of Tarzan (1915) has a little girl "totally absorbed in the domestic duties" of her companion Geeka. Adverbs of degree such as totally, wholly and completely cluster around it. The active voice puts the task in charge: Livonian affairs "were to absorb him for many a year" in Waliszewski's Ivan the Terrible (1904).
- 4To take something in so completely that it loses its separate existence and becomes part of a larger whole.
Over the centuries the empire absorbed dozens of neighboring kingdoms.
Successful firms absorb their competitors and rebrand the products.
Similarincorporate, assimilate, annex, swallow, integrate
Note
The word's Latin root still shows in this sense. Latin absorbeō meant "swallow up", built from ab- "from" and sorbeō "suck in, swallow", and it reached English through French absorber. What is absorbed is not destroyed; it stops being separate. That is why the subject can be an abstraction, as in William Cowper's "Dark oblivion soon absorbs them all" (1782), or wages that absorbed 80% of a company's revenue.
- 5To take in energy and convert it into a different form.
Chlorophyll molecules absorb light energy during photosynthesis.
These materials absorb radiation across a wide range of wavelengths.
Similarcapture
Note
Physics and chemistry use the word for energy rather than matter, and the point is conversion. Heat, light or electricity absorbed by a substance does not stay what it was; it becomes part of the substance's own energy, in another form. Three narrower uses follow from it, for blows, for sound and for radiation turned to heat, and each is defined by what fails to come back out.
- 6To take in the energy of a physical impact or vibration without bouncing it back.
Modern crumple zones absorb the force of a collision.
Thick rubber mats absorb the vibrations from the machinery.
Similarcushion, soften, dampen, deaden
Note
This is the collision version. Whatever absorbs a blow keeps its energy instead of returning it as recoil, so success is measured by how little comes back. The verb pairs naturally with force, impact, shock and vibration. The absorbed energy does not vanish; it goes into bending, compressing or warming the material that takes the hit.
- 7To take in radiant energy and convert it into a different form of energy, such as heat.
Greenhouse gases absorb infrared radiation rising from the earth's surface.
A matte black coating absorbs incoming light and reradiates it as heat.
Note
With light and other radiation, the alternatives are reflection and transmission: whatever is not absorbed bounces off or passes through. The absorbed share most often turns into heat, so absorb sits naturally beside warm and temperature. Technical writing ties the verb to wavelengths, since one substance can absorb one band of radiation and let another through.
- 8To take in sound energy so that it does not echo or bounce back.
Acoustic foam panels absorb echoes in the recording studio.
Soft furnishings absorb sound that would otherwise reverberate.
Note
Acoustics measures this sense against echo, or repercussion in its older, literal meaning of sound struck back. Sound that a surface absorbs is not returned to the room, so the usual objects are sound, noise and echoes. A well-absorbing room sounds dead rather than silent: the noise is still made, but it does not come back.
- 9
- 10To take on or pay for a cost as part of a commercial transaction.
The company chose to absorb the extra tariffs rather than raise prices.
Retailers absorb the cost of returns to stay competitive.
Similarbear, shoulder, cover, swallow
Note
Business uses the word for costs a firm takes on rather than passes along, and the test is where the expense ends up. Gunnar Almgren's Health Care Politics, Policy, and Services (2006) asks whether small employers' profit margins can absorb the costs of health insurance. Margins, budgets and balance sheets are the natural subjects, and costs, increases and losses are the natural objects.
- 11To pay for or cover a cost, especially so that others do not have to bear it.
The university agreed to absorb the travel costs for visiting scholars.
Several donors absorbed the shortfall after the fundraiser fell short.
Similarcover
Note
Anyone can do this, not only a firm: someone covers a charge so that nobody else pays it, as in "I'll absorb the charge for the window replacement." Its blunt synonym is eat, as in to eat the cost, which keeps the old image of swallowing. Absorb is the more polite choice when a loss is taken on deliberately.
- 12To accept or buy something in large quantities.
Investors absorbed the entire bond offering within hours.
The warehouse can absorb a large surplus when prices drop.
Similarbuy, take, accommodate
- 13To soak in or sink into a surface until no longer visible.
The spilled oil slowly absorbed into the porous stone.
Most of the rain will absorb into the dry field by morning.
Similarsoak, sink, seep, penetrate
Note
Here the liquid becomes the subject: drops of water absorb into a sponge, and oil absorbs into stone. It is the intransitive partner of the soaking-up sense, where the sponge is the subject and the water is the object. Into names whatever receives the liquid. Sink in and soak in are close equivalents, and like them it describes the liquid's movement rather than the material's action.
- 14To engulf or swallow something up, as water swallows whatever falls into it.
to be absorpt, or swallowed up, in a lake of fire and brimstone.
1684, Thomas Burnet, The Sacred Theory of the EarthNote
Here the swallowing is literal, done by water or fire, and this use is now obsolete. Thomas Burnet's The Sacred Theory of the Earth (1684–1690) speaks of being "absorpt, or swallowed up, in a lake of fire and brimstone", with the archaic past participle absorpt. Modern writers say engulf or swallow up. Today absorb keeps only the figurative swallowing of the merging sense.
Practice
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Origin
Absorb comes from Middle French absorber, from Old French assorbir, and ultimately from Latin absorbeō ("swallow up"), formed from ab- ("from") plus sorbeō ("suck in, swallow"), which traces back to the Proto-Indo-European root *srebʰ- ("to sip").