saturate

Verb

saturate (third-person singular simple present saturates, present participle saturating, simple past and past participle saturated)

1. (transitive) To cause to become completely permeated with, or soaked (especially with a liquid).
   • Rain saturated their clothes.
   • After walking home in the driving rain, his clothes were saturated.

   Synonyms:

   drench, impregnate, soak

2. (figuratively, transitive) To fill thoroughly or to excess.
   • Modern television is saturated with violence.
3. (transitive) To satisfy the affinity of; to cause a substance to become inert by chemical combination with all that it can hold.
   • One can saturate phosphorus with chlorine.
4. (transitive) To render pure, or of a colour free from white light.

Noun

England/ˈsatjʊɹət/US/ˈsæt͡ʃəɹət/

saturate (plural saturates)

1. Something saturated, especially a saturated fat.
   • Through formation of a double bond, stearic acid (18:0), a saturate, is converted to acid (18:1), a monounsaturate.1999, Tom Brody, Nutritional Biochemistry, Academic Press, →ISBN, page 363
   • We estimate from Table 4 that the average deuterium content in the saturate is approximately 1.1 when palladium is the catalyst, 1.6 when platinum is the catalyst, and 1.7 when rhodium is the catalyst. If there were only deuterium on the surface, the saturate would average 2 deuteriums.1973, Paul Nels Rylander, Fourth Conference on Catalytic Hydrogenation and Analogous Pressure Reactions

Adjective

England/ˈsatjʊɹət/US/ˈsæt͡ʃəɹət/

saturate (comparative more saturate, superlative most saturate)

1. Saturated, wet, soaked.
   • The innocent are gay—the lark is gay, / That dries his feathers, saturate with dew, / Beneath the rosy cloud, while yet the beams / Of dayspring overshoot his humble nest.1785, William Cowper, “The Task”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), page 23
   1. (broadly, poetic) Dripping with, covered with, exuding (something) [with with].
      • There she lay, […]
        Wax-white, seraphic, saturate with the sun
        O' the morning that now flooded from the front
        And filled the window with a light like blood.1868, Robert Browning, “VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi.”, in The Ring and the Book. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder and Co., →OCLC, page 226, line 1518
2. Very intense.
   • saturate green
3. (obsolete) Satisfied, satiated.
4. (obsolete) Complete, perfect.
5. (obsolete) Saturated.