different between wet vs sticky

English

Etymology

From Middle English wet (“wet, moistened”), wett, wette, past participle of Middle English weten (“to wet”), from Old English w?tan (“to wet, moisten, water”), from Proto-Germanic *w?tijan? (“to wet, make wet”), from Proto-Indo-European *wed- (“water, wet”) (also the source of water).

Cognate with Scots weit, wete (“to wet”), Saterland Frisian wäitje (“to wet; drench”), Icelandic væta (“to wet”). Compare also Middle English weet (“wet”), from Old English w?t (“wet, moist, rainy”), from Proto-Germanic *w?taz (“wet, moist”), related to Scots weit, weet, wat (“wet”), North Frisian wiat, weet, wäit (“wet”), Saterland Frisian wäit (“wet”), West Frisian wiet (“wet”), Swedish and Norwegian våt (“wet”), Danish våd (“wet”), Faroese vátur (“wet”), Icelandic votur (“wet”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: w?t, IPA^(key): /w?t/
• Rhymes: -?t
• Homophone: whet (in accents with the wine-whine merger)

Adjective

wet (comparative wetter, superlative wettest)

1. Made up of liquid or moisture, usually (but not always) water.

   Synonym: wetting

2. Of an object, etc.: covered or impregnated with liquid, usually (but not always) water.

   Synonyms: damp, saturated, soaked; see also Thesaurus:wet

   Antonym: dry

3. Of a burrito, sandwich, or other food: covered in a sauce.
   • 2000, Robert Allen Palmatier, Food: a dictionary of literal and nonliteral terms, page 372:

     A chimichanga (MWCD: 1982) is a burrito that is deep-fried, rather than baked, and is served in the fashion of a wet burrito.

   • 2005, Restaurant business, Volume 104, Issues 1-10

     The new item is its first "wet," or sauce-topped, burrito.

   • 2011, J. Gabriel Gates, Charlene Keel, Dark Territory, page 13

     But I'm getting the wet burrito.” Ignacio looked down at some sort of a tomato sauce–covered tortilla tube.

4. Of calligraphy and fountain pens: depositing a large amount of ink from the nib or the feed.

5. Of a sound recording: having had audio effects applied.
6. Of weather or a time period: rainy.

   Synonyms: damp, raining, rainy

   Antonyms: dry, sunny

   • 1637, John Milton, Comus, London: Humphrey Robinson, p. 32,^[1]

     Summer drouth, or singed aire

     Never scorch thy tresses faire,

     Nor wet Octobers torrent flood

     Thy molten crystall fill with mudde,
7. (aviation) Using afterburners or water injection for increased engine thrust.

8. (slang) Of a person: inexperienced in a profession or task; having the characteristics of a rookie.

   Synonyms: green, wet behind the ears

9. (slang, vulgar) (of women) Sexually aroused and thus having the vulva moistened with vaginal secretions.

   Synonyms: horny, moist; see also Thesaurus:randy

10. (Britain, slang) Ineffectual, feeble, showing no strength of character.
    • 1924, Percy Marks, The Plastic Age, ch. XVII:

      "Wet! What currency that bit of slang has—and what awful power. It took me a long time to find out what the word meant, but after long research I think that I know. A man is wet if he isn't a 'regular guy'; he is wet if he isn't 'smooth'; he is wet if he has intellectual interests and lets the mob discover them; and, strangely enough, he is wet by the same token if he is utterly stupid. He is wet if he doesn't show at least a tendency to dissipate, but he isn't wet if he dissipates to excess. A man will be branded as wet for any of these reasons, and once he is so branded, he might as well leave college … "

    • 2020, Boris Johnson quoted in "Proms row: Johnson calls for end to 'cringing embarrassment' over UK history," by Jim Waterson, The Guardian, Aug. 25, 2020:

      “I think it’s time we stopped our cringing embarrassment about our history, about our traditions, and about our culture, and we stopped this general fight of self-recrimination and wetness."

    Synonyms: feeble, hopeless, useless, drip

11. (retronym) Permitting alcoholic beverages.
12. (slang, archaic) Refreshed with liquor; drunk.

    Synonyms: inebriated, soused; see also Thesaurus:drunk

    • c. 1694, Matthew Prior, “Celia to Damon”

      […] When my lost Lover the tall Ship ascends, / With Musick gay, and wet with Iovial Friends […]

13. (biology, chemistry) Of a scientist or laboratory: working with biological or chemical matter.

    Antonym: dry

14. (chemistry) Employing, or done by means of, water or some other liquid.

15. (slang, euphemistic) Involving assassination or "wet work".

    a wet affair; a wet job; wet stuff

Derived terms

Descendants

• Bislama: wet
  • ? Araki: wet

Translations

See also

• moist

Noun

wet (countable and uncountable, plural wets)

1. Liquid or moisture.
2. Rainy weather.

   Don't go out in the wet.

3. (Australia) Rainy season. (often capitalized)
   • 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1943, Chapter XI, page 186-7, [2]

     They'll be in the camp […] before the Wet's out, mark my words.

   • 2006, Alexis Wright, Carpentaria, Giramondo 2012, p. 365:

     He said he wanted to beat the clouds gathering, before the Wet had properly settled itself over the plains again.

   • 2015, David Andrew, The Complete Guide to Finding the Mammals of Australia, Csiro Publishing, Appendix B, page 380 [3]

     Northern Australia is tropical and subject to a prolonged wet season (often called simply 'the Wet') that may last from December to April […] . The Wet features high humidity, heavy rain, flooding that can cut off towns and roads for days on end, and, in most years, violent cyclones that cause high seas, widespread damage and sometimes loss of life.

4. (Britain, UK politics, derogatory) A moderate Conservative; especially, one who opposed the hard-line policies of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

   Antonym: dry

5. (colloquial) An alcoholic drink.
   • 1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York 2007, page 60:

     ‘A pity,’ said Jim, ‘I thought we was going to have a free wet.’

6. (US, colloquial) One who supports the consumption of alcohol and thus opposes Prohibition.
   • c. 1952-1996, Noah S. Sweat, quoted in 1996

     The drys were as unhappy with the second part of the speech as the wets were with the first half.

7. (motor racing, in the plural) A tyre for use in wet weather.
   • 2004, Jonathan Noble, Mark Hughes, Formula One Racing For Dummies (page 303)

     Wets, designed to channel water away from underneath the tyres, maximise grip and minimise the chance of aquaplaning.

8. (colloquial, derogatory) A weak or sentimental person; a wimp or softie.
   • 1984, British Book News (page 324)

     Above all, he [Nigel Molesworth] is his own man, resolutely committed to a view of life that divides his fellow pupils into 'sissies', 'wets', 'swots' and 'old lags'.

Translations

Verb

wet (third-person singular simple present wets, present participle wetting, simple past and past participle wet or wetted)

1. (transitive) To cover or impregnate with liquid.
2. (transitive) To accidentally urinate in or on.

   Johnny wets the bed several times a week.

3. (intransitive) To make or become wet.
4. (transitive, soldering) To form an intermetallic bond between a solder and a metal substrate.
5. (transitive, informal) To celebrate by drinking alcohol.
   • 1826, Thomas Bayly Howell, Thomas Jones Howell, A Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings

     [He] invited some officers and other gentlemen to dine with him at the Dolphin tavern in Tower street, June 17, 1706, in order to wet his commission […]

   to wet the baby's head

6. Misspelling of whet.
7. (US, MLE, slang) To kill or seriously injure.

   Wet 'em up!

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

• Tew, ewt, tew

Afrikaans

Etymology

From Dutch wet,

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /v?t/

Noun

wet (plural wette)

1. law

Derived terms

• klankwet
• wetboek
• grondwet

Araki

Etymology

Borrowed from Bislama wet (“wet”), from English wet.

Adjective

wet

1. (Southwest Santo) wet

References

• François, A. (2002) Araki: A disappearing language of Vanuat, Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Cited in: "Araki (Southwest Santo)" in Greenhill, S.J., Blust, R., & Gray, R.D. (2008). The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database: From Bioinformatics to Lexomics. Evolutionary Bioinformatics, 4:271-283.

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??t/
• Hyphenation: wet
• Rhymes: -?t

Etymology 1

From Middle Dutch wet, wette, wit, weet, from Old Dutch witat, witut (“rule, law”), from Proto-Germanic *wit?þ? (“law”).

Noun

wet f (plural wetten, diminutive wetje n)

1. law (rule)
2. law (body of rules declared and/or enforced by a government)
3. (physics) law

Derived terms

Descendants

• Afrikaans: wet
• ? Indonesian: wet
• ? Madurese: ???? (wet)
• ? Sranan Tongo: wèt

See also

• rechten

Etymology 2

Verb

wet

1. first-, second- and third-person singular present indicative of wetten
2. imperative of wetten

Indonesian

Etymology

From Dutch wet.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?w?t]
• Hyphenation: wèt

Noun

wet or wèt

1. law (rule)

   Synonyms: hukum, undang-undang

Further reading

• “wet” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (KBBI) Daring, Jakarta: Badan Pengembangan dan Pembinaan Bahasa, Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia, 2016.

Middle English

Alternative forms

• wett, wette, wete, weet, weete

Etymology

From Old English w?t, w?t, and weten (“to wet”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /w?t/, /w??t/

Adjective

wet

1. wet, watery
2. (weather) wet, rainy
3. liquid, fluid
4. damp, moist, waterlogged
5. (terrain) marshy, boggy
6. (alchemy, medicine) Something that is considered alchemically wet
7. teary, weepy
8. bloody, bloodstained
9. sweaty, having sweat

Descendants

• English: wet
  • Bislama: wet
    • ? Araki: wet
• Scots: wat

References

• “w??t, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-26.

Noun

wet (plural wetes or weten)

1. Water or another liquid
2. wetness; wateriness
3. (alchemy, medicine) Alchemical wetness
4. Rain, raininess

Descendants

• English: wet
• Scots: wat

References

• “w??t, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-26.

Polish

Noun

wet

1. genitive plural of weto

Tok Pisin

Etymology 1

From English wet.

Adjective

wet

1. wet

Etymology 2

From English wait.

Verb

wet

1. wait

English

Etymology

From stick +? -y.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?st?ki/
• Rhymes: -?ki

Adjective

sticky (comparative stickier, superlative stickiest)

1. Able or likely to adhere via the drying of a viscous substance.

2. Potentially difficult to escape from.
   • 2014, Michael White, "Roll up, roll up! The Amazing Salmond will show a Scotland you won't believe", The Guardian, 8 September 2014:

     Salmond studied medieval Scottish history as well as economics at university so he cannot say he has not had fair warning – it was even more turbulent and bloody than England at that time – and plenty of Scotland's kings and leaders came to a sticky end.

3. Of weather, hot and windless and with high humidity, so that people feel sticky from sweating.
   • 2008, Robert K. Fitts, Wally Yonamine: The Man Who Changed Japanese Baseball

     The baby was due in December and the hot, sticky August weather was making Jane uncomfortable.

4. (finance) Tending to stay the same; resistant to change.

5. (computing, informal, of a setting) Persistent.

6. (computing, of a window) Appearing on all virtual desktops.
7. (Internet, of threads on a bulletin board) Fixed at the top of the list of topics or threads so as to keep it in view.
8. (Internet, of a website) Compelling enough to keep visitors from leaving.

9. Similar to a stick

Synonyms

• (able or likely to adhere): claggy, tenacious; see also Thesaurus:adhesive
• (hot, windless and humid): close, muggy, sultry; see also Thesaurus:muggy

Derived terms

• stickily
• stickiness
• sticky-backed plastic
• sticky bit
• sticky fingers
• sticky note
• sticky tape
• sticky wicket

Translations

See also

• tacky

Noun

sticky (plural stickies)

1. A sticky note, such as a post-it note.

   Her desk is covered with yellow stickies.

2. (Internet) A discussion thread fixed at the top of the list of topics or threads so as to keep it in view.
3. (manufacturing) A small adhesive particle found in wastepaper.
4. (Australia, colloquial) A sweet dessert wine.

Translations

Verb

sticky (third-person singular simple present stickies, present participle stickying, simple past and past participle stickied)

1. (Internet, bulletin boards, transitive) to fix a thread at the top of the list of topics or threads so as to keep it in view.

Translations