sponge
Pluralsponges
Verbsponges, sponging, sponged
Pluralsponges
Formssponges, sponging, sponged
- 1A porous piece of material for washing or cleaning, once taken from the sea animal of the same name and now often made of plastic.
The first-aid kit held bandages, a pair of scissors, and a sponge for cleaning wounds.
He scrubbed the pan with the rough side of the sponge.
- 2Any of many invertebrate animals of the phylum Porifera, living mostly in the sea and supported by a porous skeleton that is often made of silica.
A sponge pumps seawater through the tiny pores in its body to catch food.
The research vessel brought up several deep-sea sponges with delicate skeletons of glassy silica.
Similarporiferan
Note
Every other use of the word grows from the living animal. English has had it since Old English spunge, taken from Latin spongia, itself from Greek spongiá, from spóngos. Washing sponges were first made from these creatures, so sea sponge is the clear way to name the animal. Poriferan and porifer, built on the phylum name Porifera, are the technical terms.
- 3
- 4A type of cake with a light, airy texture.
The bakery's vanilla sponge is layered with jam and whipped cream.
Let the sponges cool on a wire rack before you frost them.
- 5A person who takes advantage of other people's generosity, soaking up their money or effort the way a sponge soaks up water.
He's been sleeping on his brother's couch for six months and eating all his groceries. A real sponge.
She was tired of being surrounded by sponges who only called when they needed a loan.
Similarfreeloader, moocher, leech, parasite, scrounger
Note
It is slang, and it is an insult, so it belongs in conversation; in formal writing it reads as name-calling. Sponger and freeloader carry the same charge, and the behavior has its own verb: people who live off their friends are said to sponge on them.
- 6To get things from other people by taking unfair advantage of their kindness or generosity.
His brother-in-law turns up every weekend to sponge on the family.
He sponged a ride home and twenty dollars for gas from a coworker.
Similarblag
Note
Two constructions share the verb. Followed by an object, it names what is got: to sponge a breakfast, a ride home. With on or upon, the person imposed on comes next, as when Jonathan Swift, writing in 1735, complained of half a score who came to sponge on him every Sunday evening. With the person as object and of before the loss, it becomes stripping someone of something.
- 7A person who absorbs new ideas and information quickly and readily.
As an intern she was a sponge, soaking up everything the senior engineers taught her.
Toddlers are sponges for language and pick up phrases after hearing them just once.
Note
Where the freeloader soaks up other people's money, this kind of person soaks up knowledge, and the word turns from insult to praise. What is absorbed follows of or for: Phoeve Hutchison, writing in 2014, urges readers to think of their children as sponges of information.
- 8
- 9The porous material from which synthetic washing sponges are made.
The scrubber has a layer of sponge on one side and a rough green pad on the other.
She glued a strip of sponge inside the lid to stop it from rattling.
Similarfoam
Note
Here the word names the stuff rather than the object, so it takes no article and comes in pieces, strips and layers: a strip of sponge, a layer of sponge. Give it an article or a plural and it turns back into the washing sponge in your hand: a sponge, two sponges.
- 10A form of contraception in which a sponge is inserted into the vagina.
She asked the clinic nurse whether the sponge or the pill would suit her better.
Sponges, condoms, and diaphragms were displayed on the same pharmacy shelf.
- 11To wipe writing or marks away with a sponge, or more generally to erase something so that no trace of it remains.
She sponged yesterday's chalk diagrams off the board before class.
Years of good work could not sponge out the record of that one mistake.
Similarwipe, erase, rub, expunge, efface
Note
Out is the natural partner here: you sponge out a line, a name, a mistake. The figurative use, wiping away deeds rather than ink, is already there in Richard Hooker in the 1590s. He would have the eyes that had looked on idols sponge out their unlawful acts.
- 12A type of pudding that is cooked by steaming rather than by baking in an oven.
She covered the basin with foil and left the sponge to steam for two hours before turning it out.
The pub's winter menu has a sticky ginger sponge, steamed to order and served with custard.
Note
Only British usage stretches the word this far, while the light baked cake is the meaning in general use. When the two could be confused, the full name sponge pudding settles it, and it is the clearer choice for any reader outside Britain.
- 13
- 14Any substance or material that is like a sponge in its structure, texture, or behavior.
Inside the bone is a light sponge of thin struts that adds strength without much weight.
As the lava cooled, trapped gas left the rock a gray sponge riddled with air pockets.
Note
Here the word for the sea animal and the washing tool, which came from Greek spóngos through Latin spongia and Old English spunge, stretches to anything built the same way: light, porous, full of holes. Keep it apart from the synthetic material, which really is sponge; this sense is pure comparison. The same likeness has settled into narrower trade meanings: bakers' risen, unkneaded dough and ironworkers' pasty iron from the puddling furnace.
- 15In baking, dough that yeast or leaven has turned into a light, porous mass, before it is kneaded and shaped into loaves.
Once the sponge had turned light and bubbly, she worked in the rest of the flour and kneaded it into dough.
A slow overnight sponge gives the finished loaves a deeper flavor.
Note
Bakers name the dough's first, bubbly stage after the sponge, much as ironworkers name pasty furnace iron: each is a porous mass that looks the part. In the sponge-and-dough method only part of the flour ferments with the yeast. Once that is light, the rest is worked in and kneaded. A baker sets a sponge and lets it work.
- 16Of dough or a similar mixture, to become a light, porous mass through the action of yeast or leaven.
Stir in the yeast, then leave the batter in a warm corner to sponge until it has doubled.
Overnight the dough sponged into a soft, bubbly mass that filled the crock.
Note
Dough does this on its own, so the verb takes no object: the baker simply leaves the dough or batter somewhere warm to sponge. The verb names the rising, and the risen dough is its result, so a baker who has set a sponge waits for it to sponge before kneading.
- 17To take something away from someone by imposing on them, so that they are left without it.
Note
The passive shows this sense at its clearest: Robert South, in Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, asks how such multitudes came to be sponged of their plate and their money. Where sponging on someone dwells on the taker, this meaning tallies what the victim lost.
- 18Of a dolphin, to use a piece of wild sponge as a tool while foraging for food.
- 19A porous mass of iron ore that has been reduced but not yet melted or worked.
- 20A mop for cleaning the bore of a cannon after firing, made of a wooden cylinder covered with wool-on sheepskin or cloth with a heavy looped nap, on a handle or staff.
- 21A worker at a nuclear power plant whose job routinely exposes them to radiation.
- 22Iron taken from a puddling furnace while it is still in a soft, pasty state.
- 23One end or point of a horseshoe, the part that corresponds to the heel of the hoof.
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Practice
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Origin
From Middle English sponge, from Old English spunge, which was borrowed from Latin spongia. The Latin word came from Ancient Greek σπογγιά (spongiá), from σπόγγος (spóngos).