noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Either of the processes of absorption and adsorption; sorbing. countable, uncountable
2. 2
   the process in which one substance takes up or holds another (by either absorption or adsorption) wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

absorbencyabsorbentabsorptionadsorbentadsorptionassimilation

Etymology

Back-formation from absorption; representing Latin sorbeō (“I suck in”).

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