soak

UK/səʊk/US/soʊk/

soak verb: to be saturated with liquid by being immersed in it.

Verb (1)

soak (third-person singular simple present soaks, present participle soaking, simple past and past participle soaked)

(intransitive) To be saturated with liquid by being immersed in it.
- I'm going to soak in the bath for a couple of hours.
- Their land shall be soaked with blood.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 24:7
(transitive) To immerse in liquid to the point of saturation or thorough permeation.
- Soak the beans overnight before cooking.
(intransitive) To penetrate or permeate by saturation.
- The water soaked into my shoes and gave me wet feet.
- The rivulet beneath […]soaked its way obscurely through wreaths of snow.1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown...
Synonyms:

imbue
(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.
(figuratively, transitive) To overcharge or swindle out of a large amount of money.
- 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.1928, Upton Sinclair, Boston, New York, N.Y.: Albert & Charles Boni, page 337
- Sure, if we own an aerospace contracting company, a five-thousand-acre sugar-beet farm, or a savings and loan with the president's son on the board of directors, we can soak Uncle Sucker for millions.2015, P. J. O'Rourke, Thrown Under the Omnibus: A Reader
Synonyms:

fleece
(dated, slang) To drink intemperately or gluttonously.
(transitive) To heat (a metal) before shaping it.
(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.
(figuratively, transitive) To absorb; to drain.
- That they will want a certaine sucking and soaking1624, Henry Wotton, The Elements of Architecture, […], London: […] Iohn Bill, →OCLC
(Mormonism, slang) To engage in penetrative sex without hip thrusting.

Verb (2)

soak (third-person singular simple present soaks, present participle soaking, simple past and past participle soaked)

(transitive) (slang, boxing) To hit or strike.
- Wasn't Mr. Sipperley pretty shirty when he came to and found that you had been soaking him with putters?1926, [P.G. Wodehouse], The Inferiority Complex of Old Sippy

Noun

soak (plural soaks)

An immersion in water etc.
- After the strenuous climb, I had a nice long soak in a bath.
- wildlife tourism has turned Knepp into a successful business that employs more people than it did when it was a farm. Springtime overnighters snuggling down in a luxury treehouse after a soak in the open-air, wood-fired Swedish Hikki bathtub may hear nightingales serenading their consorts2020 February 25, Christopher de Bellaigue, “The end of farming?”, in The Guardian
(UK, slang) A drunkard.

Synonyms:

alcoholic, souse, suck-pint, alco, alkie, bacchanal, bacchant, barfly, bibber, booze artist
(slang) A carouse; a drinking session.
(Australia) A low-lying depression that fills with water after rain.
- 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.1985, Peter Carey, Illywhacker, Faber & Faber, published 2003, page 38
- Molly and Daisy finished their breakfast and decided to take all their dirty clothes and wash them in the soak further down the river.1996, Doris Pinkington, “Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence”, in Heiss, Minter, editors, Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, Allen & Unwin, published 2008, page 170

soak meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

soak in Hindi

to be saturated with liquid by being immersed in it: सोखना sokhnā
to immerse in liquid to the point of saturation or thorough permeation: भिगोना bhigonā, भिगाना bhigānā

soak in Tamil

to be saturated with liquid by being immersed in it: தோய் tōy, ஊறு ūṟu
to immerse in liquid to the point of saturation or thorough permeation: ஊறவை ūṟavai
to penetrate or permeate by saturation: கசி kaci
to allow (especially a liquid) to be absorbed: உறி uṟi, உறிஞ்சு uṟiñcu

soak in Urdu

to immerse in liquid to the point of saturation or thorough permeation: بھگونا bhigonā, بھگانا bhiganā

More languagesFewer languages

soak in Bengali: ভেজানোর প্রক্রিয়া
soak in Telugu: నానబెట్టండి, నానబెట్టడానికి
soak in Malayalam: കുതിരുക kutiruka
soak in Kannada: ನೆನೆಸುವುದು, ತೋಯಿಸುವುದು, ಹೀರಿಕೆ, ನೆನೆತ
soak in Punjabi: ਭਿੱਜਣ ਲਈ
soak in Gujarati: પલાળવું palāḷvũ
soak in Odia: ଚପିବା capibā
soak in Assamese: টোকা tüka
soak in Nepali: भिजाउन
soak in Arabic: اِبْتَلَّ ibtalla
soak in Vietnamese: ngâm

Examples of soak in a sentence

A turban and loincloth soaked in blood had been found; also a staff.1927, F. E. Penny, chapter 4, in Pulling the Strings:
And I should say, it soaked me, it soaked the upper middle class in blue states.2025 January 31, Ross Douthat, “Steve Bannon on ‘Broligarchs’ vs. Populism”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

All 40 example sentences with soak

Synonyms of soak

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of soak

Forms of soak

Verb
third-person singular present	soaks
present participle	soaking
past participle	soaked
past	soaked
Noun
plural	soaks

Past tense of soak: soaked

Plural of soak: soaks

Origin of soak

From Middle English soken, from Old English socian (“to soak, steep”, literally “to cause to suck (up)”), from Proto-Germanic *sukōną (“to soak”), causative of Proto-Germanic *sūkaną (“to suck”). Cognate with Middle Dutch soken (“to cause to suck”). More at suck.

Words formed from soak

Phrases with soak

soak tests

Words that rhyme with soak

42 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about soak

What does soak mean?: Soak means to be saturated with liquid by being immersed in it.
What is soak in Hindi?: Soak in Hindi is सोखना (sokhnā), भिगोना (bhigonā), भिगाना (bhigānā). See Soak meaning in Hindi.
How do you use soak in a sentence?: A turban and loincloth soaked in blood had been found; also a staff.
What part of speech is soak?: Soak can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce soak?: Soak is pronounced /səʊk/ (UK).
What is the past tense of soak?: The past tense of soak is soaked.

Words near soak in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: soak (page history and authors); soak (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); soak (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); soak (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); കുതിരുക (Malayalam) (page history and authors); soak (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); soak (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); પલાળવું (Gujarati) (page history and authors); ଚପିବା (Odia) (page history and authors); soak (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-soak.ogg.

Cite this entry: “soak.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/soak. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.