[f. SOAK v.]
† 1. Taking in moisture, absorbent; fig., drawing to oneself, tending to drain or exhaust. Obs.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 463/2. Sokynge grownde, as sondy grownde and other lyke.
1528. Tindale, Obed. Chr. Man, 159 b. A sokynge consumcion, where in a man complayneth of feblenes and of fayntynes.
1575. Churchyard, Chippes (1817), 186. But loe my skill,… For soaking soores, a soueraigne salue could finde.
1593. Q. Eliz., Boeth., II. metr. iv. 30. [He] Shuns soking Sandes.
1611. Shaks., Wint. T., I. ii. 224. Thy Conceit is soaking, will draw in More then the common Blocks.
† b. transf. Of persons. Obs.
1565. Cooper, Barathrum,… a soking or wasting queane.
1584. Lodge, Alarum, B ij. They finde out … some olde soaking vndermining Solicitour.
† c. Soaking doe, ‘a barren doe, that going over the year is fat, when other does have fawns’ (Halliwell). Obs.
1588. Presentment, in Essex Rev., XV. (1906), 64. A soaken doe found hurt cominge out of the Purliewe.
2. † a. Of a fire: Slow. Obs. (Cf. SOAK v. 6.)
c. 1450. Douce MS. 55 fol. 129. Rost hym with sokynne fyre.
c. 1467. Noble Bk. Cookry (1882), 67. Rost hym long with a soking fyere.
1615. Markham, Eng. Housew. (1668), 73. Then spit it and rost it by a soaking fire.
b. Printing. (See quots.)
1683. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., Printing, § xxiv. ¶ 5. 282. A long or a Soaking or Easie Pull, is when the Form feels the force of the Spindle by degrees, till the Bar comes almost to the hither Cheek of the Press.
1888. Jacobi, Printers’ Vocab., 128. Soaking pull.—A long and easy pull over of the bar-handle of a printing press.
3. Percolating; sinking in; flowing slowly.
1577. Hanmer, Anc. Eccl. Hist., Euseb., I. iii. A certain soaking slumber of drunkenness.
1648. J. Beaumont, Psyche, XX. lx. The heav’nly Dew Into Earth’s thirsty mouth drops soaking Joy.
1699. Dampier, Voy., II. III. 102. To the East of Cape Roman … you meet only a soaking faint Current.
4. Drenching; wetting thoroughly.
1641. Best, Farm. Bks. (Surtees), 59. A good soakinge shower aboute the latter ende of September.
1664. Evelyn, Kal. Hort. (1729), 193. Rub Moss off your Trees after a soaking Rain.
1753. Scots Mag., XV. 76/2.
| Though drench’d his shaggy hide with soaking rain, | |
| He ne’er retreats for shelter from the plain. |
1806. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life, II. xiv. A soaking torrent of rain.
1894. Hall Caine, Manxman, V. vi. The rain was coming down in a soaking drizzle.
transf. 1863. W. C. Baldwin, Afr. Hunting, i. 11. The innocent cause of many a miserable soaking night to myself and others.
5. Saturated, drenched.
1864. Abp. Tait, in Reminisc. Lady Wake (1909), xxiv. 280. It was voted dangerous for any one to fall asleep in our soaking state.
1879. Atcherley, Trip Boërland, 260. I crept under the waggon and stripped off my soaking clothes.
1882. ‘Ouida,’ Maremma, I. 181. When the suns of August sucked up the venom from the emerald soaking swamp.
6. Quasi-adv., in soaking wet.
1847. C. Brontë, Jane Eyre, v. All underfoot was still soaking wet with the floods of yesterday.
1863. W. C. Baldwin, Afr. Hunting, iii. 94. Spent three miserable soaking-wet days.
