soak
Noun pluralsoaks
Pluralsoaks
- 1
- 2To become saturated by being immersed in liquid.
Leave the lentils to soak before you start cooking.
The clothes soaked in cold water until the stains lifted.
Similarsteep
Note
Old English socian meant "to soak, steep," but literally "to cause to suck up." It is the causative of the Germanic verb that gave us suck. Here the verb needs no object: the lentils soak, you soak in the bath. When someone does the steeping, it becomes the transitive "immerse" use. The King James Bible of 1611 already has land "soaked with blood."
- 3To take in or absorb a liquid or other thing; often used with up.
Plants soak up nutrients through their roots.
She sat on the porch and soaked up the afternoon sun.
Similarabsorb
Note
Now the absorber is the subject: a sponge soaks up water. Up is the usual partner, though in also works, as in "the skin soaks in moisture." Up carries the sense furthest from liquids, so you can soak up knowledge at university, taking in as much as you can. The figurative uses keep the image of a sponge: eager and thorough, yet a little passive.
- 4To penetrate or spread through something by saturation.
The oil soaked into the grain of the old table.
Cold damp can soak through stone walls over the winter.
Note
Here the liquid is the subject, and a preposition marks what it enters: water soaks into shoes, and damp soaks through walls. The verb also takes the "way" construction. Walter Scott's Guy Mannering (1815) has a rivulet that "soaked its way obscurely through wreaths of snow." The phrase suggests slow, hidden progress rather than a splash.
- 5
- 6To absorb or drain away something, such as money, time, or energy.
The lawsuit soaked the company's reserves within a year.
Endless errands soak up her free time on the weekends.
Similardrain, consume, absorb, deplete, swallow
Note
Henry Wotton's The Elements of Architecture (1624) pairs the word with its own root: "a certaine sucking and soaking." The figure is of something that draws resources away the way dry ground draws water, whether reserves, time or energy. Unlike the swindling slang, no cheating is implied, and the drain can be entirely innocent.
- 7To overcharge someone or cheat them out of a large sum of money.
The hotel soaked its guests with hidden fees at checkout.
Scalpers soak desperate fans for hundreds of dollars per ticket.
Similarfleece
Note
Money stands in for water, and the victim is drained of it. Upton Sinclair's Boston (1928) has a ring that "soaked him to the tune of three hundred and eighty-six thousand." The phrase "soak the rich" carries the sense into politics, as Ross Douthat's "soaking the rich" shows in 2025. Like its synonym fleece, it covers both steep overcharging and outright cheating.
- 8A low-lying hollow in the ground that fills with water after rain.
Cattle drank from the soak that formed after the heavy rains.
Every spring the soak in the meadow brims with rainwater.
Similarwaterhole
Note
An Australian landscape word for a hollow where rainwater collects and stands. Peter Carey's Illywhacker (1985) has "a soak with plenty of frogs in it." A soak can also lie along a river, a place to wash clothes as well as to find wildlife. It is a countable noun for a place, unlike the act of soaking.
- 9A drinking session; a bout of heavy drinking.
The reunion ended in a riotous soak at the old tavern.
He regretted the weekend soak when Monday morning came.
Similarbinge, bender, spree, session
Note
The occasion rather than the person: a soak here is an evening or weekend of heavy drinking. It shares its spelling with the word for a drunkard, so context does the work: an old soak is someone, while a weekend soak is something that happens. Like carouse, it is slang and implies excess, not a quiet drink.
- 10A person who habitually drinks to excess; a drunkard.
The landlord finally barred the old soak who never paid his tab.
She married a charming man who turned out to be a hopeless soak.
Similardrunk, drunkard, alcoholic, boozer, lush
Oppositeteetotaler
Note
British slang for a person who seems permanently steeped in drink, the picture behind the dated verb. Its synonyms show the range of tone: alcoholic is clinical, while souse and suck-pint share soak's slangy disrespect. Suck-pint even echoes suck, the root behind soak itself.
- 11To drink alcohol heavily and without restraint.
They soaked steadily through the long winter evenings.
Old hands at the docks would soak until their wages ran out.
Note
Drink is the liquid, and the drinker is steeped in it. This dated slang is used without an object: "they soaked through the evenings." The same image gives the noun for a habitual drunkard and the one for a drinking bout. In current writing the verb reads as period color, so "drink heavily" is the safer plain description.
- 12To hit or strike someone, especially with a heavy punch.
The champion soaked his challenger with a brutal uppercut.
He waited for an opening to soak the taller fighter on the jaw.
Similarpunch, slug, hit, belt, clobber
Note
Boxing slang for landing a blow, though it travels outside the ring. P.G. Wodehouse's The Inferiority Complex of Old Sippy (1926) has someone "soaking him with putters." There a with-phrase names the weapon, and the tone is comic. "Hit" or "strike" is the neutral choice, while soak suits light, slangy narration.
- 13To heat a metal thoroughly before shaping it.
The smith soaked the billet until it reached an even working heat.
Workers soak the ingots before they pass to the rolling mill.
Note
A metallurgist's soak is about time as much as heat. The metal is held hot long enough for the temperature to even out through its whole section. That way the inside of a billet or ingot is as ready for forging or rolling as its surface. The potter's kiln-firing use borrows the same idea of holding heat steady.
- 14To hold a kiln at a set temperature for a given length of time.
The potter soaked the kiln near top temperature to mature the glazes.
You soak the kiln so the heat spreads evenly through every pot.
Note
In the pottery studio the object is the kiln, not the pots. You soak the kiln at a temperature, often given as a cone number, for a stated time: "soak the kiln at cone 9 for half an hour." The pause lets ware and glaze catch up with the heat, the same principle as the metalworker's soak.
- 15To engage in penetrative sex while remaining still, without thrusting the hips.
In certain communities, couples are taught to soak rather than thrust.
He found that soaking felt more intimate than active movement.
Note
Slang chiefly associated with Mormon communities, named for stillness rather than motion: partners stay joined without thrusting. It is used without an object. Because it is sexual slang tied to one religious setting, it is a term to recognize rather than one to use casually.
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Origin
From Middle English soken, from Old English socian ("to soak, steep"), literally "to cause to suck up," which came from Proto-Germanic *sukōną, a causative form of *sūkaną ("to suck"). It is related to the word "suck."