different between spongy vs aerenchyma

English

Alternative forms

• spongey

Etymology

sponge +? -y

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?sp?nd?i/

Adjective

spongy (comparative spongier, superlative spongiest)

1. Having the characteristics of a sponge, namely being absorbent, squishy or porous.
   • c. 1601, William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Act II, Scene 2,^[1]

     Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I

     As far as toucheth my particular,

     Yet, dread Priam,

     There is no lady of more softer bowels,

     More spongy to suck in the sense of fear,

     More ready to cry out 'Who knows what follows?'

     Than Hector is:

   • 1861, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Elsie Venner, Boston: Ticknor & Fields, Volume 2, Chapter 28, p. 246,^[2]

     […] there were times when she would lie looking at her, with such a still, watchful, almost dangerous expression, that Helen would sigh, and change her place, as persons do whose breath some cunning orator had been sucking out of them with his spongy eloquence, so that, when he stops, they must get some air and stir about, or they feel as if they should be half-smothered and palsied.
2. Wet; drenched; soaked and soft, like sponge; rainy.
   • c. 1611, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act IV, Scene 1,^[3]

     Thy banks with pioned and twilled brims,

     Which spongy April at thy hest betrims,

   • 1633, John Donne, “The Indifferent” in Poems, London: John Marriot, p. 200,^[4]

     Her who still weepes with spungie eyes,

     And her who is dry corke, and never cries;

     I can love her, and her, and you and you,

     I can love any, so she be not true.

   • 1850, Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Chapter 3,^[5]

     […] I was quite tired, and very glad, when we saw Yarmouth. It looked rather spongy and soppy, I thought, as I carried my eye over the great dull waste that lay across the river […]

   • 1961, Bernard Malamud, A New Life, Penguin, 1968, p. 21,^[6]

     It rains […] most of the fall and winter and much of the spring. It’s a spongy sky you’ll be wearing on your head.

3. (slang) Drunk.

Synonyms

• (characteristics of a sponge): spongelike
• (soaked and soft): See Thesaurus:wet
• (drunk): See Thesaurus:drunk

Derived terms

• spongily
• sponginess
• spongy lead
• spongy platinum

Translations

English

Alternative forms

• aerenchym (dated)

Etymology

From Latin ??r (“air”) +? -enchyma.

Noun

aerenchyma (plural aerenchymas or aerenchymae)

1. (botany) A spongy, airy tissue found especially in the roots of aquatic plants

Related terms

• aerenchymatic
• aerenchymatous

Descendants

• ? Irish: aereincíoma

Translations