sorb

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /sɔːb/

  • Audio (Southern England):

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /sɔɹb/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /soːb/

Borrowed from Middle French sorbier (the tree), sorbe (the fruit), from Latin sorbus (the tree), sorbum (the fruit). See service tree.

sorb (plural sorbs)

1. The service tree, Sorbus domestica.
2. Any of various related trees, including the wild service tree, S. torminalis, and the rowan, S. aucuparia.
3. The fruit of any of these trees, especially of the service tree.

Ultimately from Latin sorbeo, sorbere.

sorb (third-person singular simple present sorbs, present participle sorbing, simple past and past participle sorbed)

1. (chemistry) To absorb or adsorb.
   • 1971, E. K. Duursma, M. G. Gross, Chapter Six: Marine Sediments and Radioactivity, National Research Council (U.S.) Committee on Oceanography Panel on Radioactivity in the Marine Environment, Radioactivity in the marine environment, page 148,

     In sediments with large cation exchange capacities, as calculated from the mineral composition (Duursma and Eisma, unpublished), the radionuclides were somewhat more strongly sorbed (Figure 2).

   • 2005, J. E. Barbash, “The Geochemistry of Pesticides”, in Barbara Sherwood Lollar, editor, Treatise on Geochemistry 9: Environmental Geochemistry, Second Edition, page 548:

     The exchange of pesticide compounds between aqueous solution and the sorbed phase in soils is not instantaneous.

   • 2007, Danny D. Reible, “Chapter 21: Contaminant Processes in Sediments”, in Marcelo H. García, editor, Sedimentation Engineering: Processes, Management, Modeling, and Practice, page 966:

     The quantity sorbed is often found to be well represented by the combination of a compartment exhibiting linear, reversible sorption and a compartment that exhibits nonlinear and thermodynamic irreversib[l]e sorption.

   • 2021, “Community Guide to Granular Activated Carbon Treatment”, in United States Environmental Protection Agency‎^[1], page 1, columns 1, 2:

     As contaminated water or air flows through GAC, contaminants sorb (stick) to the GAC surface and are removed. […] It also sorbs low levels of some types of metals. […] The “spent” GAC may be replaced with fresh GAC or regenerated to remove the sorbed contaminants.

• BORs, Bros., ORBs, bors, bros, bros., orbs, robs

sorb

1. inflection of sorbi:
   1. first-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. third-person plural present indicative

Inherited from Latin sorbus.

sorb m (plural sorbi)

1. wild service tree (Sorbus torminalis)

From sorbi.

sorb n (plural sorburi)

1. whirlpool
2. strainer

• vârtej

• “sorb”, in DEX online—Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language) (in Romanian), 2004–2025