spongy

CEFRB2

/ˈspʌnd͡ʒi/

adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
adjective
Soft and full of small holes like a sponge.
02
adjective
Extra detail
Wet; drenched; soaked and soft, like sponge; rainy.

Examples

Oooh, sick! What is that stuff? It's all spongy.
The ground is spongy.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 3
Parts of speech: 1
Citations: 5
Synonyms: 3

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meaning

Having the characteristics of a sponge, namely being absorbent, squishy or porous.

More examples

In context

spongy earth; spongy cake; spongy bones
It rains […] most of the fall and winter and much of the spring. It’s a spongy sky you’ll be wearing on your head.
Thy banks with pioned and twilled brims, Which spongy April at thy hest betrims,

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The cake had a blank texture due to many air pockets inside.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I As far as toucheth my particular, Yet, dread Priam, There is no lady of more softer bowels, More spongy to suck in the sense of fear, More ready to cry out 'Who knows what follows?' Than Hector is:
c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]
[…] there were times when she would lie looking at her, with such a still, watchful, almost dangerous expression, that Helen would sigh, and change her place, as persons do whose breath some cunning orator had been sucking out of them with his spongy eloquence, so that, when he stops, they must get some air and stir about, or they feel as if they should be half-smothered and palsied.
1861, Oliver Wendell Holmes, chapter 28, in Elsie Venner, volume 2, Boston: Ticknor & Fields, page 246
It was easy to realise, too, the need for the overall 40 m.p.h. speed limit; apart from the spongy nature of much of the track bed, the [West Highland] line suffered considerably in the Arctic conditions of last winter, from which it has not yet fully recovered.
1964 January, Cecil J. Allen, “Locomotive Running Past and Present”, in Modern Railways, page 52
Thy banks with pioned and twilled brims, Which spongy April at thy hest betrims,
1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]
Her who still weepes with spungie eyes, And her who is dry corke, and never cries; I can love her, and her, and you and you, I can love any, so she be not true.
1633, John Donne, “The Indifferent”, in Poems, London: John Marriot, page 200

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Origin

adjective

From spong(e) + -y.

Deep Dive

adjective

More examples

Related

Quick test

The cake had a blank— texture due to many air pockets inside.

Nearby

Origin

adjective

The cake had a blank texture due to many air pockets inside.