[f. prec. + -AGE.]
1. Liquid that has filtered or oozed out.
1766. Compl. Farmer, s.v. Turnep 7 P 3/2. Water which happens to be the soakage of a dung-yard.
1799. [A. Young], Agric. Linc., 244. He could, by taking the whole soakage of the hill, produce a river capable of turning a considerable mill.
1847. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., VIII. I. 118. They have to throw out the great soakage of water from the rivers Welland and Glen.
1884. Daily News, 24 Sept., 3/4. The water in it gets contaminated by soakage from the gutter.
attrib. 1799. [A. Young], Agric. Linc., 284. A soakage drain on each side of it.
b. Austr. A soak, a waterhole.
1898. Geogr. Jrnl., XI. 261. A small pool of water, evidently a soakage from the surrounding country.
1898. Morris, Austral Eng., Soak, or Soakage,… a Western and Central Australian term.
2. Liquid or moisture absorbed.
1830. M. Donovan, Dom. Econ., I. 205. The original twenty gallons come off less by the soakage.
3. The process of percolating or soaking through.
1867. S. W. Baker, Nile Trib., v. 102. The escape of the rainfall was by simple soakage.
1888. Miss Braddon, Fatal Three, I. v. I’m afraid there may have been soakage from that manure-heap into the well.
1904. A. St. H. Gibbons, Africa, I. ii. 25. In so thirsty a country as Africa evaporation and soakage must be very considerable.
4. The fact of lying in soak.
1855. Ogilvie, Suppl., Soakage, act of soaking: state of being soaked.
1863. Possibil. of Creation, 188. His flesh, converted into a species of spermaceti … by long soakage in running water.
5. Electr. The residual charge of a cable or condenser (Cent. Dict., Suppl., citing Houston).
