saturate
Americanverb (used with object)
-
saturates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
saturated,
past participle, past
-
saturating
present participle
-
to cause (a substance) to unite with the greatest possible amount of another substance, through solution, chemical combination, or the like.
-
to charge to the utmost, as with magnetism.
-
to soak, impregnate, or imbue thoroughly or completely.
to saturate a sponge with water; a town saturated with charm.
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to destroy (a target) completely with bombs and missiles.
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to send so many planes over (a target area) that the defensive electronic tracking equipment becomes ineffective.
-
to furnish (a market) with goods to its full purchasing capacity.
verb (used without object)
-
saturates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
saturated,
past participle, past
-
saturating
present participle
adjective
noun
verb
-
to fill, soak, or imbue totally
-
to make (a chemical compound, vapour, solution, magnetic material, etc) saturated or (of a compound, vapour, etc) to become saturated
-
(tr) military to bomb or shell heavily
adjective
Synonym Usage
See wet.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
saturatesimple
-
saturatessimple
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have saturatedperfect
-
has saturatedperfect
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am saturatingprogressive
-
are saturatingprogressive
-
is saturatingprogressive
-
have been saturatingperfect progressive
-
has been saturatingperfect progressive
Past
-
saturatedsimple
-
had saturatedperfect
-
was saturatingprogressive
-
were saturatingprogressive
-
had been saturatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of saturate
First recorded in 1530–40; from Latin saturātus (past participle of saturāre “to fill”), equivalent to satur- “full, well-fed” ( see sad) + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
The verb saturate means to cause something to be fully soaked to the point where it can't take on anything else. A heavy rainstorm can saturate the ground, leaving puddles on the lawn because no more water can be absorbed. The word saturate comes from the Latin word saturatus, meaning "to fill full, sate, drench." Saturate is often used to describe the aftermath of a big rainstorm, but other things can be saturated as well. If you're a workaholic, you might saturate all your free time with work, leaving no time to spend with your family. In chemistry, saturate describes causing one substance, like a solution, to take on the greatest amount of another substance.
Vocabulary lists containing saturate
Tangerine
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The Martian
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Revenue grew at greater than 24% a year from 2002 to 2022 when the company began to saturate the market for its customer relationship management software.
From Barron's ● May 27, 2026
UAVs are seen as a low-cost way to saturate targets and air defenses.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 5, 2026
“We go in and saturate an area with high visibility and view patrol,” said Sean Duryee, commissioner of the California Highway Patrol, standing at Newsom’s side.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 29, 2025
India is also developing swarm drone tactics - deploying large numbers of smaller UAVs to overwhelm and saturate air defences, allowing higher-value assets to penetrate, say experts.
From BBC ● May 9, 2025
But in the event of a nuclear accident, people who may be exposed to iodine 131 can take potassium iodide tablets, which provide enough non-radioactive iodine 127 to saturate the thyroid.
From "Meltdown" by Deirdre Langeland
Grief saturates the early pages of Catriona McPherson’s dark mystery “The Dead Room,” in which a young widow leaves her marital home in Hawaii and returns to her native Scotland.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026
The dancers wear separates that pop in a sunny array of orange, pink, purple, red and yellow and glow under Nicole Pearce’s lighting design, which saturates the stage with color.
From New York Times ● Mar. 21, 2024
Among the restricted or banned books in these states are biographies of Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. No wonder fear saturates publishing.
From Salon ● May 30, 2023
The closure comes as an atmospheric river saturates the Seattle area, with heavy rain delivering moderate to heavy snowfall over the Cascades on Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 12, 2023
“A one in a billion—no trillion—anomaly, born from the oddness that saturates your county.”
From "The Last Last-Day-of-Summer" by Lamar Giles
But Randolph disputes the idea African scouting is now saturated, citing a number of areas that remain relatively undiscovered, often because of conflict or logistics, with scouts drawn to the region's biggest cities.
From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026
It contends that contemporary culture is overly saturated with collapse, dystopia and fear.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
After all, wasn’t American life saturated with rich men who seemed to get richer without doing any real work?
From Slate ● Sep. 20, 2026
Previously, Zscaler pursued a strategy of “opportunity-based selling” focused on finding new customers to buy its products, an approach that proved challenging as the market became more saturated.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 17, 2026
He looked for her in her sisters' shop, behind the window shades in her house, in her father's office, but he found her only in the image that saturated his private and terrible solitude.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Fumes have travelled into the neighbouring Namur province, where authorities had to ask residents to stop saturating emergency phone lines with reports of the smell.
From Barron's ● Aug. 16, 2026
Sabroso maximizes the visual pop and sharp humor that defines every scene, saturating frames in “see me” colors popping citrusy in one moment and fiery in the next, lifting the cast’s audacious, extreme performances.
From Salon ● Dec. 17, 2025
The windows and patio doors failed in my apartment, sending water surging inside and saturating all of the rugs and much of the furniture.
From Slate ● Oct. 21, 2024
Through a series of voice notes and calls, Perkins took BBC News through the storm as it barrelled through her community, bringing howling winds and saturating the area with rain.
From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2024
The liquid seeps into the paper, slowly saturating it until the entire tree glows a rich crimson in a forest of white.
From "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
