soapen

soapen verb: to make soapy; apply soap to; lather up.

Verb

soapen (third-person singular simple present soapens, present participle soapening, simple past and past participle soapened)

(transitive) To make soapy; apply soap to; lather up
- I know, his tastes were disgusting too), he flicked through his enormous dictionary (which he was careful to keep out of the dampening effects of the shower and the soapening effects of the soap) looking for and learning enormous words that he could use to impress everyone as he practised the...2005, The Puffin Book of Funny Stories, page 18

soapen (comparative more soapen, superlative most soapen)

(figuratively, rare, literal) Made of, or carved out of soap
- None to mix stones or sand with kelp or foreign ashes, or expose such to sale, under forfeiture of 40s. to the informer, nor use lime, soapen dregs, or any dung but cow-dung, in the whitening or bleaching linen cloth or yarn, without forfeiting 5l. to the informer; […]1746, The gentleman's magazine, volume 16, page 657
- From this ivory, or soapen, pinnacle we can see at once that there is no such thing as a population problem; there is only population.1958, Roy G. Francis, The Population Ahead, page 64

Verb
third-person singular present	soapens
present participle	soapening
past participle	soapened
past	soapened
Adjective
comparative	more soapen
superlative	most soapen

From soap + -en.

What does soapen mean?: Soapen means to make soapy; apply soap to; lather up.
What part of speech is soapen?: Soapen can be a verb or an adjective.
What is the past tense of soapen?: The past tense of soapen is soapened.

Adapted from Wiktionary: soapen (page history and authors). 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

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