absorb
/əbˈzɔːrb/verb
take in, soak up, or completely engross
From Latin ab- (away from) + Latin sorbeō (to suck in).
Lineage
ab-
sorbeō
The story
Picture a Roman verb with an unusually physical appetite: absorbere meant “to swallow up” or “devour,” built from ab-, “away,” and sorbere, “to suck in.” The sucking half reaches back to Proto-Indo-European *srebʰ-, a root associated with sipping; its distant relatives include Lithuanian srėbti, “to drink greedily,” and Greek rhopheo, “to gulp down.” French carried the word through Old French absorbir and Middle French absorber before English picked it up in the early 15th century. Then, in 1763, English made the leap from swallowing things to swallowing attention: a fascinating book could absorb you. So when a towel absorbs water, a lecture absorbs your attention, and a sponge absorbs a spill, they all preserve the image of something vanishing into a hungry mouth.
Modern usage
To drain or soak up power or substance; also used humorously to nullify an insult or comeback.
- Heard in
- internet slang · humorous online exchanges
- See
- Urban Dictionary entries describing draining or soaking up substance and the humorous “Absorb” exchange
Words from the same roots
sorbeō · Latin, ‘to suck in, swallow’
Derivedabsorption, sorbent, sorbefacient