saturate

The adjective is first attested in the second part of the 15^th century, in Middle English, the verb in 1538, the noun in 1921; inherited from Middle English saturat(e) (“satiated, satisfied”), borrowed from Latin saturātus, perfect passive participle of saturō (“to fill, satisfy, quench”) (see -ate (etymology 1, 2 and 3)), from satur (“full”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix).

verb

• IPA^(key): (England) /ˈsatjʊreɪt/, (US) /ˈsæt͡ʃəˌɹeɪt/

  • Audio (Southern England):

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noun, adjective

• IPA^(key): (England) /ˈsatjʊrət/, (US) /ˈsætʃərət/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

saturate (third-person singular simple present saturates, present participle saturating, simple past and past participle saturated)

1. (transitive) To cause to become completely permeated with, or soaked (especially with a liquid).

   Synonyms: drench, impregnate, soak

   Rain saturated their clothes.

   After walking home in the driving rain, his clothes were saturated.

   • 1815, Annals of Philosophy, volume 6, page 332:

     Suppose, on the contrary, that a piece of charcoal saturated with hydrogen gas is put into a receiver filled with carbonic acid gas, […]

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XII, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     Innumerable flocks and herds covered that vast expanse of emerald meadow, saturated with the moisture of the Atlantic.

2. (transitive, figurative) To fill thoroughly or to excess.

   Modern television is saturated with violence.

3. (transitive, chemistry) 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.

4. (transitive, optics) To render pure, or of a colour free from white light.

saturate (plural saturates)

1. (chemistry) Something saturated, especially a saturated fat.
   • 1999, Tom Brody, Nutritional Biochemistry, Academic Press, →ISBN, page 363:

     Through formation of a double bond, stearic acid (18:0), a saturate, is converted to acid (18:1), a monounsaturate.

   • 1973, Paul Nels Rylander, Fourth Conference on Catalytic Hydrogenation and Analogous Pressure Reactions:

     We estimate from Table 4 that the average deuterium content in the saturate is approximately 1.1 when palladium is the catalyst, 1.6 when platinum is the catalyst, and 1.7 when rhodium is the catalyst. If there were only deuterium on the surface, the saturate would average 2 deuteriums.

saturate (comparative more saturate, superlative most saturate)

1. Saturated, wet, soaked.
   • 1785, William Cowper, “The Task”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), page 23:

     The innocent are gay—the lark is gay, / That dries his feathers, saturate with dew, / Beneath the rosy cloud, while yet the beams / Of dayspring overshoot his humble nest.

   1. (by extension, poetic) Dripping with, covered with, exuding (something) [with with]. This term needs a definition. Please help out and add a definition, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.
      • 1868, Robert Browning, “VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi.”, in The Ring and the Book. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder and Co., →OCLC, page 226, line 1518:

        There she lay, […]
        Wax-white, seraphic, saturate with the sun
        O' the morning that now flooded from the front
        And filled the window with a light like blood.

2. (entomology) Very intense.

   saturate green

3. (obsolete) Satisfied, satiated.
4. (obsolete) Complete, perfect.
5. (obsolete, chemistry) Saturated.

• “saturate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “saturate”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “saturate”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• taurates, tuateras

• IPA^(key): /satuˈrate/

saturate

1. adverbial present passive participle of saturar

• IPA^(key): /sa.tuˈra.te/
• Rhymes: -ate
• Hyphenation: sa‧tu‧rà‧te

saturate

1. feminine plural of saturato

saturate f pl

1. feminine plural of saturato

saturate

1. inflection of saturare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative

• astutare, tesatura

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [sa.tʊˈraː.tɛ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [sa.t̪uˈraː.t̪e]

saturāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of saturō

saturate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of saturar combined with te