saturate
verb · adjective
Simple meaning
To cause to become completely impregnated.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sachuhraytSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsætʃəˌɹeɪt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
To cause to become completely impregnated, or soaked (especially with a liquid).
“After walking home in the driving rain, his clothes were saturated.”
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.”
To fill to excess.
“Modern television is saturated with violence.”
To render pure, or of a colour free from white light.
adjective
Saturated; wet.
Word at a Glance
- Frequency
- Rare
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To cause to become completely impregnated, or soaked (especially with a liquid).
Used this way, saturate is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“After walking home in the driving rain, his clothes were saturated.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
How It’s Used
The word’s distinct uses, one example each.
Cause / satisfyverb
“After walking home in the driving rain, his clothes were saturated.”
Fillverb
“Modern television is saturated with violence.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Being the most concentrated solution possible at a given temperature.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A fatty acid whose carbon chain cannot absorb any more hydrogen atoms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API (CC BY-SA 3.0). Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.