different between moist vs sodden

English

Etymology

From Middle English moiste (“moist, wet", also "fresh”), from Anglo-Norman moiste and Middle French moiste (“damp, mouldy, wet”), of obscure origin and formation. Perhaps from a late variant of Latin m?cidus (“slimy, musty”) combined with a reflex of Latin mustum (“must”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /m??st/
• Rhymes: -??st

Adjective

moist (comparative moister or more moist, superlative moistest or most moist)

1. Slightly wet; characterised by the presence of moisture, not dry; damp. [from 14th c.]
   • 1937, "Modernist Miracle", Time, 1 Nov 1937:

     Joseph Smith, a diffident, conscientious young man with moist hands and an awkward, absent-minded manner, was head gardener at Wotton Vanborough.

   • 2011, Dominic Streatfeild, The Guardian, 7 Jan 2011:

     "The other car didn't explode," continues Shujaa. "The explosives were a bit moist. They had been stored in a place that was too humid."

2. Of eyes: tearful, wet with tears. [from 14th c.]
   • 1974, "Mitchell and Stans: Not Guilty", Time, 6 Dec 1974:

     Eyes moist, he hugged one of his attorneys and later said: "I feel like I've been reborn."

3. Of weather, climate etc.: rainy, damp. [from 14th c.]
   • 2008, Graham Harvey, The Guardian, 8 Sep 2008:

     With its mild, moist climate, Britain is uniquely placed to grow good grass.

4. (sciences, historical) Pertaining to one of the four essential qualities formerly believed to be present in all things, characterised by wetness. [from 14th c.]
   • :

     Pituita, or phlegm, is a cold and moist humour, begotten of the colder parts of the chylus […]

5. (obsolete) Watery, liquid, fluid. [14th-17th c.]
   • 1658, Sir Thomas Browne, Hydriotaphia:

     Some being of the opinion of Thales, that water was the originall of all things, thought it most equall to submit unto the principle of putrefaction, and conclude in a moist relentment.

6. (medicine) Characterised by the presence of pus, mucus etc. [from 14th c.]
7. (colloquial) Sexually lubricated (of the vagina); sexually aroused, turned on (of a woman). [from 20th c.]
   • 2008, Marcia King-Gamble, Meet Phoenix, p. 168:

     He slid a finger in me, checking to make sure I was moist and ready for him.

Usage notes

Moist is mostly used for agreeable conditions while damp is mainly used for disagreeable conditions:

• moist cake
• damp clothes

Synonyms

• (slightly wet): damp, thone/thoan (dialect); see also Thesaurus:wet
• (tearful): dewy-eyed, misty, weepy, wet
• (rainy, damp): dank or see Thesaurus:muggy
• (watery, liquid, fluid): liquidlike; see also Thesaurus:fluidic

Related terms

• moisten
• moist media
• moisture

Translations

Verb

moist (third-person singular simple present moists, present participle moisting, simple past and past participle moisted)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To moisten.

References

Anagrams

• omits

Livonian

Alternative forms

• (Courland) m?istõ

Etymology

Related to Estonian mõistma (“understand”) and Finnish muistaa (“remember”).

Verb

moist

1. understand

Middle English

Adjective

moist

1. Alternative form of moiste

English

Etymology

From Middle English sodden, soden, from Old English soden, ?esoden, from Proto-Germanic *sudanaz, past participle of Proto-Germanic *seuþan? (“to seethe; boil”). Cognate with West Frisian sean, Dutch gezoden, German Low German saden, söddt,German gesotten, Swedish sjuden, Icelandic soðinn. More at seethe.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?s?.d?n/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?s?.d?n/

Adjective

sodden (comparative more sodden, superlative most sodden)

1. Soaked or drenched with liquid; soggy, saturated.
   • 1810, James Millar (editor), Encyclopaedia Britannica, Volume XII, 4th Edition, page 702,

     It is found, indeed, that meat, roa?ted by a fire of peat or turf, is more ?odden than when coal is employed for that purpo?e.

   • 1895 February, James Rodway, Nature's Triumph, The Popular Science Monthly, page 460,

     The outfalls are choked, the dams are perforated by crabs or broken down by floods, and soon the ground becomes more and more sodden.

   • 2014, Paul Salopek, Blessed. Cursed. Claimed., National Geographic (December 2014)[1]

     A miraculous desert rain. We slog, dripping, into As Safi, Jordan. We drive the sodden mules through wet streets. To the town’s only landmark. To the “Museum at the Lowest Place on Earth.”
2. (archaic) Boiled.
   • c. 1569, Hugh Gough (translator), The Ofspring of the House of Ottomanno and Officers Pertaining to the Greate Turkes Court by Bartolomej Georgijevi?, London, Thomas Marshe, “The diuersities of their drinke,”^[2]

     The thirde [drynke] is of that kinde of hony named Pechmes, whiche is made of newe wine sodden, vntill the third parte be boyled awaye […]

   • 1596, Richard Johnson, The Most Famous History of the Seaven Champions of Christendome, London: Cuthbert Burbie, Chapter 14, p. 131,^[3]

     […] howe Almidor the blacke King of Moroco was sodden to death in a cauldrone of boyling leade and brimstone.
3. (figuratively) Drunk; stupid as a result of drunkenness.
   • 1595, George Peele, The Old Wives’ Tale, The Malone Society Reprints, 1908, line 560,^[4]

     You whoreson sodden headed sheepes-face […]

   • c. 1601, William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Act II, Scene 1,^[5]

     […] thou sodden-witted lord! thou hast no

     more brain than I have in mine elbows […]

   • 1857, Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, 1899, Reprint Edition, page 60,

     With this profession of faith, the doctor, who was an old jail-bird, and was more sodden than usual, and had the additional and unusual stimulus of money in his pocket, returned to his associate and chum in hoarseness, puffiness, redfacedness, all-fours, tobacco, dirt, and brandy.

   • 2010, Peter Hitchens, The Cameron Delusion, page 79,

     I would have done too, but alcohol makes me so ill that I couldn't (I mention this to make it clear that I don't claim any moral superiority over my more sodden colleagues).

4. (figuratively) Dull, expressionless (of a person’s appearance)
   • 1613, Francis Beaumont, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, London: Walter Burre, Act 5, Scene 1,^[6]

     Remoue and march, soft and faire Gentlemen, soft and faire: double your files, as you were, faces about. Now you with the sodden face, keepe in there […]

   • 1795, Samuel Jackson Pratt, Gleanings through Wales, Holland and Westphalia, London: T.N. Longman and L.B. Seeley, Letter 49, pp. 444-445,^[7]

     Of the music-girls, many are pretty featured, but carry in every lineament, the signs of their lamentable vocation: sodden complexions, feebly glossed over by artificial daubings of the worst colour […]

Synonyms

• (soaked): dopping, waterlogged; see also Thesaurus:wet
• (boiled):
• (drunk): See Thesaurus:drunk
• (dull expression): blank, stonefaced

Derived terms

• soddenly
• soddenness
• tea-sodden football hooligan

Translations

Verb

sodden (third-person singular simple present soddens, present participle soddening, simple past and past participle soddened)

1. (transitive) To drench, soak or saturate.
   • 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet Chapter 4

     But as I lay asleep the top had been pressed off the box, and the tinder got loose in my pocket; and though I picked the tinder out easily enough, and got it in the box again, yet the salt damps of the place had soddened it in the night, and spark by spark fell idle from the flint.

2. (intransitive) To become soaked.

Translations

Anagrams

• Seddon