sponge
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: spŭnj
ipa: /spʌnd͡ʒ/
note: Indic
ipa: /ˈspəɲdʒ/
note: spelling pronunciation
ipa: /ˈspɔɲdʒ/
rhymes: -ʌndʒ
Forms: form: sponges
form: sponging
form: sponged
form: sponged
Etymology: From Middle English sponge, from Old English spunge, taken from Latin spongia, from Ancient Greek σπογγιά (spongiá), from σπόγγος (spóngos).
Senses: examples: text: The fly is an intruder, and a common smell-feast, that spunges upon other Peoples Trenchers.
ref: 1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC:
text: You can’t go on spunging upon the women.
ref: 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 32, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
text: He has been sponging off his friends for a month now.
glosses: To take advantage of the kindness of others.
examples: text: “[…] They talk of you as if you were Croesus—and I expect the beggars sponge on you unconscionably.” And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes.
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
text: July 17 1735, Jonathan Swift, letter to Lord Ornery
I am an utter stranger to the persons and places, except when half a score come to sponge on me every Sunday evening
text: to sponge a breakfast
synonyms: blag
qualifier: intransitive with on or upon
glosses: To get by imposition; to scrounge.
examples: text: How came such multitudes of our nation […] to be sponged of their plate and their money?
ref: 1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London:
glosses: To deprive (somebody) of something by imposition.
glosses: To clean, soak up, or dab with a sponge.
glosses: To suck in, or imbibe, like a sponge.
examples: text: Lett the eyes which have looked on Idols, sponge out their unlawfull acts
ref: 1594–1597, Richard Hooker, edited by J[ohn] S[penser], Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, […], London: […] Will[iam] Stansby [for Matthew Lownes], published 1611, →OCLC, (please specify the page):
glosses: To wipe out with a sponge, as letters or writing; to efface; to destroy all trace of.
topics: baking
cooking
food
lifestyle
glosses: To be converted, as dough, into a light, spongy mass by the agency of yeast or leaven.
examples: text: Why do dolphins sponge instead of foraging in a more "normal" way?
ref: 2013, Pamela S. Turner, The Dolphins of Shark Bay, page 22:
text: Sponging is worth thinking about in some detail because it illustrates many of the challenges and sources of controversy in studying social learning and culture in wild cetaceans.
ref: 2015, Hal Whitehead, Luke Rendell, The Cultural Lives of Whales and, page 109:
text: Moreover, the females that do it seem to "sponge" relentlessly throughout the day, hunting more than other females and more than male spongers too.
ref: 2017, Janet Mann, Deep Thinkers: Inside the Minds of Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises, page 153:
qualifier: marine biology
glosses: To use a piece of wild sponge as a tool when foraging for food.
raw_tags: of dolphins
Derived terms: responge
spongeable
sponge up