[f. SODDEN ppl. a.]
1. trans. To make sodden; to soak in, or saturate with, water.
1812. Ann. Reg., Chron., 502. The ground becomes compressed and soddened (to use an antiquated term) by the winter rains.
1844. Dickens, Pict. fr. Italy (1846), 147. Your pony soddening his girths in water.
1878. Daily News, 12 June, 5/1. The rains have soddened the earth.
b. To render (the faculties) dull or stupid; to deprive of vivacity or freshness.
1863. Cowden Clarke, Shaks. Char., xvii. 431. His sensuality does not sodden and brutify his faculties, but it quickens their temper and edge.
1883. Pall Mall Gaz., 28 Dec., 4/2. His soul has been deadened and soddened by ages of exclusive devotion to the question of bread and cider.
2. intr. a. To become soaked or saturated with water or moisture; to grow soft or rotten in this way.
1820. Byron, Mar. Fal., II. ii. 95. The block may soak their gore; Their heads may sodden in the sun.
a. 1861. Woolner, My Beautiful Lady, Tolling Bell, lviii. I wandered wearily … Through swamps that soddened under stagnant air.
b. Of a liquid: To soak into something.
1881. Eleanor A. Ormerod, Injurious Insects (1890), 345. Dressing … of some kind which will not sodden into the tree in the heat of the sun.
Hence Soddened ppl. a.; Soddening vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1845. Hirst, Poems, 18. We … laid them in the *soddened ground.
1883. Knowledge, 3 Aug., 68/1. Soddened fruit enveloped in heavy indigestible pudding paste.
1852. Wiggins, Embanking, 97. This *soddening, or stagnation of the soil in a watery state.
1890. Huxley, in Times, 1 Dec., 13/3. The prostitution of the mind, the soddening of the conscience.
1857. T. Moore, Handbk. Brit. Ferns (ed. 3), 28. A *soddening—continued wetness, as distinguished from mere dampness, of the soil.
