verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   To accumulate on a surface, by adsorption. physical, transitive

   "The gas was purified by adsorbing the impurities onto active carbon."

2. 2
   accumulate (liquids or gases) on the surface wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

absorbassimilateblotblot upchemisorbchemosorb

Example

More examples

"Glass will adsorb water readily, which is why we see a thin film of water on recently washed drinking glasses."

Etymology

From French adsorber, from Latin ad- (“to”) + sorbeō (“suck in”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.