• (British) enPR: sōk, IPA: /səʊk/
• (America) enPR: sōk, IPA: /soʊk/

soak (soaks, present participle soaking; past and past participle soaked)

1. (intransitive) To be saturated with liquid by being immersed in it.

   I'm going to soak in the bath for a couple of hours.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981 ↗, Isaiah 24:7 ↗:

     Their land shall be soaked with blood.

2. (transitive) To immerse in liquid to the point of saturation or thorough permeation.

   Soak the beans overnight before cooking.

3. (intransitive) To penetrate or permeate by saturation.

   The water soaked into my shoes and gave me wet feet.

   • 1815 February 23, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. [...] In Three Volumes, volume (please specify ), Edinburgh: Printed by James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], OCLC 742335644 ↗:

4. (transitive) To allow (especially a liquid) to be absorbed; to take in, receive. (usually + up)

   A sponge soaks up water; the skin soaks in moisture.

   I soaked up all the knowledge I could at university.

5. (figurative, transitive) To take money from.

   1928, Upton Sinclair, Boston

   It's a blackmail ring, and the district attorneys get a share of the loot. […] Well, they got him in the same kind of jam, and soaked him to the tune of three hundred and eighty-six thousand.

6. (slang, dated) To drink intemperately or gluttonously.
7. (metallurgy, transitive) To heat (a metal) before shaping it.
8. (ceramics, transitive) To hold a kiln at a particular temperature for a given period of time.

   We should soak the kiln at cone 9 for half an hour.

9. (figurative, transitive) To absorb; to drain.

• French: tremper
• German: durchnässen
• Italian: inzupparsi, imbeversi
• Portuguese: molhar-se, ensopar-se, encharcar-se
• Russian: намока́ть
• Spanish: empapar, remojar, embeber

• French: faire tremper, immerger
• German: tränken, einweichen
• Italian: mettere a bagno, mettere a mollo, imbevere
• Portuguese: molhar, ensopar, encharcar, deixar de molho
• Russian: выма́чивать
• Spanish: remojar, empapar

• Italian: inzuppare
• Russian: проса́чиваться
• Spanish: saturar

• French: éponger
• Italian: assorbire
• Russian: впи́тывать
• Spanish: esponjar

soak (plural soaks)

1. An immersion in water etc.

   After the strenuous climb, I had a nice long soak in a bath.

2. (slang, British) A drunkard.
3. (slang) A carouse; a drinking session.
4. (Australia) A low-lying depression that fills with water after rain.
   • 1985, Peter Carey, Illywhacker, Faber & Faber 2003, p. 38:

     I set off early to walk along the Melbourne Road where, one of the punters had told me, there was a soak with plenty of frogs in it.

   • 1996, Doris Pinkington, Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence, in Heiss & Minter, Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, Allen & Unwin 2008, p. 170:

     Molly and Daisy finished their breakfast and decided to take all their dirty clothes and wash them in the soak further down the river.

• (drunkard) alcoholic, souse, suck-pint; See also Thesaurus:drunkard

• German: Einweichen
• Italian: immersione