Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Thoroughly soaked; saturated.
  • adjective Soggy and heavy from improper cooking; doughy.
  • adjective Expressionless, stupid, or dull, especially from drink.
  • adjective Unimaginative; torpid.
  • transitive & intransitive verb To make or become sodden.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Boiled; seethed.
  • Soaked and softened, as in water; soaked through and through; soggy; pulpy; pultaceous; of bread, not well baked; doughy.
  • Having the appearance of having been subjected to long boiling; parboiled; bloated; soaked or saturated, as with drink.
  • Of sods; soddy.
  • To be seethed or soaked; settle down as if by seething or boiling.
  • To become soft, as by rotting.
  • To soak; fill the tissues of with water, as in the process of seething; saturate.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • past participle Boiled; seethed; also, soaked; heavy with moisture; saturated.
  • transitive verb To soak; to make heavy with water.
  • intransitive verb To be seethed; to become sodden.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective soaked or drenched with liquid; soggy, saturated
  • adjective figuratively stupid as a result of drunkenness
  • verb transitive To drench, soak or saturate.
  • verb intransitive To become soaked.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective wet through and through; thoroughly wet

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English soden, boiled, past participle of sethen, to boil; see seethe.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, from Old English soden, past participle of seoþan ("to cook", "to boil")

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Examples

  • In reporter-editor patois, “fine” is a word sodden with contempt.

    The Fiddler in the Subway Gene Weingarten 2010

  • In reporter-editor patois, “fine” is a word sodden with contempt.

    The Fiddler in the Subway Gene Weingarten 2010

  • In reporter-editor patois, “fine” is a word sodden with contempt.

    The Fiddler in the Subway Gene Weingarten 2010

  • In reporter-editor patois, “fine” is a word sodden with contempt.

    The Fiddler in the Subway Gene Weingarten 2010

  • Comedian Jimmy Kimmel showed that poor attempt at flight with the reconstructed Wright flyer on his late night show -- I noticed that the re-enactor was on a too-short track, at a too-steep pitch, in sodden weather, and didn't have two men holding up the wing tips, unlike the Wrights -- it was a recipe for mud-diving, which he did.

    View from the Northern Border Michael Evans 2003

  • Comedian Jimmy Kimmel showed that poor attempt at flight with the reconstructed Wright flyer on his late night show -- I noticed that the re-enactor was on a too-short track, at a too-steep pitch, in sodden weather, and didn't have two men holding up the wing tips, unlike the Wrights -- it was a recipe for mud-diving, which he did.

    Archive 2003-12-14 Michael Evans 2003

  • In a world sodden with motivational cobblers which regularly commits grievous bodily harm against the English language, we can be forgiven for being hostile to this sort of stuff.

    Restaurant review: Create 2012

  • They are rinsing the salt from fishing nets and kimonos, drying sodden books, and scrubbing the bone tools with toothbrushes then treating them with alcohol to prevent mold and mildew from growing.

    Curator Tries to Save Stricken City's History Gordon Fairclough 2011

  • RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan—When the storage vault of this city's ruined library was finally cut open after the tsunami, the historic books inside had been reduced to sodden, mud-coated lumps.

    City's Identity Wrapped Up in Damaged Papers; Now, Volunteers Race to Restore Their History Gordon Fairclough 2011

  • The streets were filled with a new and different race of people, short of stature, and of wretched or beer-sodden appearance.

    THE DESCENT 2010

Comments

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  • After the rain

    August 23, 2008