English 'absorb' from Latin 'absorbēre' (to swallow up), from 'ab-' (away) + 'sorbēre' (to suck in), from PIE *srobh- (to suck).
To soak up or take in a liquid, energy, or other substance; to fully engage the attention of someone.
From Latin absorbēre (to swallow up, to engulf, to devour completely), from ab- (away, from — here functioning as an intensifier meaning wholly) + sorbēre (to suck in, to swallow, to drink in by suction). The Latin sorbēre derives from PIE *srobh- (to suck, to slurp, to absorb liquid), an expressive root also producing Greek rhophéō (I gulp down, I slurp) and rophḗma (a thick drinkable food). English borrowed absorb through Middle French absorber in the 15th century, initially with the literal sense of engulfing or swallowing a substance, before developing the figurative
The word 'sorbet' is a distant cousin of 'absorb.' Both trace back to roots meaning 'to suck in' or 'to drink.' 'Sorbet' came to English via Turkish 'şerbet' and Arabic 'sharba' (a drink), which some etymologists connect to the same PIE root *srobh- through early borrowing into Semitic languages
Words closest in meaning, ranked by similarity