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Absorbent   /əbzˈɔrbənt/   Listen
Absorbent

adjective
1.
Having power or capacity or tendency to absorb or soak up something (liquids or energy etc.).  Synonym: absorptive.



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"Absorbent" Quotes from Famous Books



... Blood from Wounds.*—The loss of any considerable quantity of blood is such a serious matter that every one should know the simpler methods of checking its flow from wounds. In small wounds the flow is easily checked by binding cotton or linen fiber over the place. The absorbent cotton, sold in small packages at drug stores, is excellent for this purpose and should be kept in every home. A simple method of checking "nosebleed" is that of drawing air through the bleeding nostril, while the other nostril is compressed with the finger.(24) Another method is to "press ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.

... Aunt Betty, who was the dairy woman until she grew too infirm, was the neatest creature imaginable; she wore the highest of turbans, and her clothes were spotless. She took the greatest pride in her dairy; for milk vessels she used great calibashes with wooden covers, and, as they naturally were absorbent, it was necessary to sun one set while another was in use. She kept them beautifully, and the milk ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux

... forgotten what rain was like; now forcibly reminded of its peculiarities. With intermission of one full day, and occasional hours, been raining ever since. If it must rain, Homburg as good a place to be in as most public haunts; lies within narrow compass; soil rapidly absorbent; if it rains in torrents at ten o'clock, and sun afterwards comes out, roadways dry by noon. Then there is the Kurhaus always open; palatial building, not to be outdone in size and beauty by Casino at Monte Carlo; but sound of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various

... that he saw the twins, by doubts. They didn't look as though they would easily be put to school. His idea still seemed to him magnificent, a great solution, but would the Annas be able to see it? They might turn out impervious to it; not rejecting it, but simply non-absorbent. As they slowly and contentedly ate their grape-fruit, gazing out between the spoonfuls at the sea shining across the road through palm trees, and looking unruffled itself, he felt it was going to be rather like suggesting to two cherubs to leave their serene ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... instruments. Until daylight the following morning Lloyd came and went about the house with an untiring energy, yet with the silence of a swiftly moving shadow, getting together the things needed for the operation—strychnia tablets, absorbent cotton, the rubber tubing for the tourniquet, bandages, salt, and the like—and preparing the little chamber adjoining the sick-room ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... family, (which averaged fifteen persons,) and left under a shed, I found that the material first employed was sufficiently dried to be used again. This process of alternate mixing and drying was renewed five times, the earth still retaining its absorbent powers apparently unimpaired. Of the visitors taken to the spot, none could guess the nature of the compost, though in some cases the heap which they visited in the afternoon had been turned over that ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... synchronism between the "radiant" and the "absorbent" is well shown by the behavior of carbonic acid gas. To the complex emission from our heated stove, carbonic acid would be one of the most transparent of gases. For such waves olefiant gas, for example, would vastly transcend it in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various

... be light yet warm, and sufficiently free so as not to interfere with bodily movements. The clothing next the skin should, we think, be linen, as being more porous and absorbent than wool (see Underwear). No woman who values her health should submit to any tight lacing. The organs of the body require every inch of space for the proper performance of their functions, and ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... best accomplished with a weak reducer. If the tray be rocked gently the reduction will be quite uniform. If, however, only a portion of the print needs reduction, this can be effected by applying the ferricyanide solution locally with a brush or bit of absorbent cotton. Extreme care is needed in this operation. In this way unduly deep shadows can be softened, veiled high lights brightened, or almost any modification obtained which may be deemed desirable. When reduction is almost completed quickly rinse the print ...
— Bromide Printing and Enlarging • John A. Tennant

... absorbent, has usually been recommended as the best material for under-clothing in sweltering weather, such as that of the present summer. An ingenious gentleman of this city, however, has discovered that a full under-suit of blotting-paper is by ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various

... jealous of the invasion of my ecstatic calm by new faces, and jealous when there of the privileges those new faces would enjoy; and then, how my recent deadness of life cried out against me as worse than a spendthrift, a destroyer! a nerveless absorbent of the bliss showered on me—the light of her morning presence when, just before embracing, she made her obeisance to the margravine, and kindly saluted me, and stooped her forehead for the baroness to kiss it; her ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... friend that it is barely possible that an objection may be urged against the following treatise, as against all books of a like character, that its tendency is to isolate the individual from his race, and to nourish an exclusive and purely selfish personal solicitude; that its piety is self-absorbent, and that it does not take sufficiently into account active duties and charities, and the love of the neighbor so strikingly illustrated by the Divine Master in His life and teachings. This objection, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... attraction and repulsion between fatty matters (printers ink), and the watery solution of gum Arabic. The extremely delicate nature of the paper matrix was a serious drawback, and had to be overcome. The slabs of limestone which served Senefelder in a previous emergency were now recurred to by him as an absorbent material similar to paper, and a trial by making an impression from his above-mentioned paper matrix on the stone, and subsequent gumming, convinced him that he was correct in his surmise. By this act lithography became ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various

... She should be provided with a circular girdle of some strong material cut upon the bias, so it may be elastic, and provided with tabs to which to pin the folded cloth. She also should have a supply of sanitary cloths made of absorbent cotton fabric, or pads made of absorbent-cotton enclosed in gauze. The latter are especially convenient for the girl who is obliged to room away from home, for they may be burned, and the cost of new ones is no greater than the laundry of cloths. These pads or cloths should be changed at least twice ...
— Confidences - Talks With a Young Girl Concerning Herself • Edith B. Lowry

... anxiously. The stain upon the cloth was rapidly growing larger. She was sure he ought not to lie there with the bleeding unchecked. She went to the door of the small private office; her eyes fell upon a package labeled "Absorbent Cotton." She opened it, pulled out a handful, and went back to ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond

... stood helplessly rubbing his chin and looking on, but on the whole was inclined to welcome this diversion as one in which, by reason of the absorbent properties of hysterics, the previous question would become absorbed. And so, indeed, it proved, for the Irrepressible gradually coming to herself; and asking with wild emotion, 'George dear, are you safe?' and further, 'George love, what has ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... tuneful muses' hapless train, Weak, timid landsmen on life's stormy main! Their hearts no selfish stern absorbent stuff, That never gives—tho' humbly takes enough; The little fate allows, they share as soon, Unlike sage proverb'd wisdom's hard-wrung boon. The world were blest did bliss on them depend, Ah, that "the friendly e'er should want a friend!" Let prudence number o'er each sturdy son ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... shirt over the spot on his broad shoulder where a wad of absorbent cotton and a lot of crisscrossed surgeon's plaster marked the slight wound. He moved the shoulder curiously. "That will be stiff for a couple of days, I suppose, but that is all there will be to it. Nothing but a scratch. Did you see the man ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine

... power of obtaining this important element from captured insects. We can thus understand how it is that the roots are so poorly developed. These usually consist of only two or three slightly divided branches, from half to one inch in length, furnished with absorbent hairs. It appears, therefore, that the roots serve only to imbibe water; though, no doubt, they would absorb nutritious matter if present in the soil; for as we shall hereafter see, they absorb a weak solution of carbonate of ammonia. A plant of Drosera, ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin

... I told them, consistent with the notion I had adopted in common with all others I had conversed with, that I thought it impossible, because the vegetable salts in the charcoal being an alkali acted as an absorbent to the sulphur of the iron, which occasions the red-short quality of the iron, and pit coal abounding with sulphur would increase it. This specious answer, which would probably have appeared conclusive to most, and which indeed ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... they were too alien to have much in common. Only as intelligences, as life forces, could they share a common bed. And it had evolved to that in fifty years. A bed of protoplasm in a shock-absorbent tank. ...
— Has Anyone Here Seen Kelly? • Bryce Walton

... the method is scarcely any more complicated than the one daily employed for coleoptera and orthoptera, which latter, too, must pass through alcohol, and be pinned, spread out, and dried. There are but two additional elements, carbolated glycerine and absorbent paper. I do not estimate the time necessary for desiccation as being very long, since the zoologist can occupy himself with other subjects while the specimens are drying. Let us add that the process renders the preservation ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various

... appear, then, that all stars are suns with continuous spectra, and the classes are differentiated by the character of the absorbent ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes

... ship's lamps, who in right of his office has a double allowance of poisoned chalices, seems thereby vastly degraded, even though he empties the chalices into himself, one after the other, much as if he were delivering their contents at some absorbent establishment in which he had no personal interest. But vastly comforted, I note them all to be, on deck presently, even to the circulation of redder blood in their cold blue knuckles; and when I look up at them lying out on the yards, and holding ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... thoroughly saturate their wool. But this was not all, nor yet the most disagreeable part of the affair. On raising them from the tub, it was necessary to dry their fleeces to some extent, by squeezing and wringing them in our hands, lest, owing to the absorbent capacity of their wool, there should soon be nothing left of our decoction in the tub. Taken with the struggles of the lambs, this proved a repulsive task. Before half the lambs were dipped, our old jacket sleeves were soaked. Withal we were nauseated, either from having our hands in the ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... was a comprehensive scheme of internal improvements, capable of indefinite enlargement and sufficient to swallow up as many millions annually as could be exacted from the foreign commerce of the country. This was a convenient and necessary adjunct of the protective tariff. It was to be the great absorbent of any surplus which might at any time accumulate in the Treasury and of the taxes levied on the people, not for necessary revenue purposes, but for the avowed object of affording protection to the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... or a few grains of Fairchild's extract of pancreas, in each. Boil B, and make C acid with dilute hydrochloric acid. Place in each tube an equal amount of well-washed fibrin, plug the tubes with absorbent cotton, and place all in a water-bath at about 100 ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... The absorbent properties of bricks vary considerably with the kind of brick. The ordinary London stock of good quality should [Sidenote: Varieties of bricks.] not have absorbed, after twenty-four hours' soaking, more than one-fifth of its bulk. Inferior ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... tin-glazed earthenware with a soft body usually buff in color and porous in texture. The colorful decorations were hand painted on the absorbent surface—usually in greens, blues, yellows, and reddish-browns, against a white background. Some small Spanish jugs in the collection bear very crude dark-red floral designs painted against a cream-colored background. A few examples of maiolica ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter

... by fits and starts and longo intervallo, yet displaying so manifest and absorbent a delight in my society that he could not bring himself to terminate the audience, while I was to conceal my immense wearisomeness and the ardent desire I had conceived ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... local historian tells you, "as a vulnerary and abstersive," and healed wounds with it; then some labourers accidentally drank it, and Epsom's fortune was made. The doctors agreed; Epsom salts were bitter, diluent, absorbent, soluble, cathartic—everything that salts should be. In two years the wells were enclosed with a wall; in twenty years France and Germany had heard of Epsom, and distinguished foreigners obediently paced the common. But the great days were still ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... advanced to account for the nature of the morbid state, which gives rise to general and local dropsy, there are only three which our author regards as entitled to our notice. According to these, all dropsical accumulations arise either, 1st, From a want of tone or energy in the absorbent vessels, giving rise to a deficient absorption. 2nd, From an increased exhalation of the natural fluid, through a similar want of tone in the exhalents; and 3d, From a mechanical obstruction to the ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... also to a large extent made of the same material. These bricks are brought to London in large quantities. They have a sanded face, are mostly square, true, and of uniform color, but they are usually porous, soft, and absorbent. Still, they are in great demand as facing bricks, and the moulded bricks enable the architect to produce many architectural effects at a moderate outlay. These fields furnish many sorts of bricks, which are called rubbers, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various

... consideration must be given to the possibility of the development of a considerable temperature rise in the air of the potash-lime absorbers, due to the reaction between the carbon dioxide and the solid absorbent. It is thus apparent that the constant-temperature conditions maintained in the calorimeter laboratory not only facilitate calorimetric measurements, but also simplify considerably the elaborate calculations of the ...
— Respiration Calorimeters for Studying the Respiratory Exchange and Energy Transformations of Man • Francis Gano Benedict

... separates us prevents our distinguishing any details of his surface, but spectral analysis reveals the presence of an absorbent atmosphere in which are gases unknown to the air of our planet, and of which the chemical composition resembles that ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion

... couldn't! You are too intensely absorbent, you are too rigidly individual. The flame in you would never consent even for an instant to be the flame in anybody else—any of those people who, for the purpose of the ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... more than the mere sum of his abilities. Behind all the forces of the man, whether of body or of mind, there stands the soul, which uses them for purposes of its own, be they for better or for worse. And of these there is always one which in time becomes the absorbent of all its life, the essence of all its being; and such purpose is soon found in the life of every man who lives, and not merely exists; such purpose is soon found in the mightiest as well as in the ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin

... with the Absorbent Mind would clip out Hints to the Young, and Confidential Charts warning the Just-Outs against taking Presents from Strangers and putting them next to Rules of Conduct that would be sure to please ...
— People You Know • George Ade

... bells and corals. On her lap was a beautiful winged smiling genius, who flourished two bright torches. On her left hand stood the man of Modena with his white lamb, a new St. John. On her right stood the man of Torcello with his keys, a new St. Peter. Both were laughing after their all-absorbent, divine, noiseless fashion; and under both was written, Sic Genius. Are not all things, ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... pale-green bands of force, the Vorkulian units sailed calmly northward, spiraling along with not the slightest change in formation or velocity. The frightful planes and beams of immeasurable power simply spent themselves harmlessly against those sparklingly radiant green walls—seemingly as absorbent to energy as a sponge is to water, since the eye could not detect any change in the appearance of the screens, under even the fiercest blasts of the hexan projectors. Bombs, torpedoes, and all material projectiles ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... moist with the fixative, and then the specimen must be covered with a bell-jar or other receiver to prevent even the slightest draft of air, otherwise the spores will float around more or less. The spores may be caught on a thin, absorbent paper, and the paper then be floated on the fixative in a shallow vessel until it soaks through and comes in contact with the spores. I have sometimes used white of egg as a fixative. These pieces of paper can then be cut out and ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson

... your flow of words, Kitten, but I do agree with their meaning. Yes, small towns can turn out gigantic specimens of conceited ego. And that conceit is like a paraffine coating; air tight against personal progress, absorbent for the poisons of jealousy and envy. There, that sounds as if I have learned a little English, doesn't it? But it isn't enough to ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft

... home life during that strenuous interval there was little more than the eating and sleeping for one whose time for the absorbent process was all too limited. Also, the perplexing questions reaching down into the under-soul of things were silent. Also, again—mark of a change so radical that none but a Thomas Jefferson may read and understand—an awe-inspiring Major Dabney had ceased to be the first citizen of the world, ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... some way before attempting to do this. Horses should be twitched, cattle held by the nose, and the head of a small animal held firmly with the hands. It may be necessary to cocainize the eye before the operator can remove the foreign object with absorbent cotton ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... unfamiliar. Nevertheless, thanks to his Spencer, he saw that he possessed the outlines of the field of knowledge. It was a matter only of time, when he would fill in the outline. Then watch out, he thought—'ware shoal, everybody! He felt like sitting at the feet of the professor, worshipful and absorbent; but, as he listened, he began to discern a weakness in the other's judgments—a weakness so stray and elusive that he might not have caught it had it not been ever present. And when he did catch it, he leapt to equality ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... right to it; in some wise it was a breakfast earned. Aaron looked melancholy; his coffee was not charmful, I knew; the chemical changes that sugar and milk wrought were not the same as when Sophie presided over the laboratory of the breakfast-tray. I am not an absorbent, and so I reflected Aaron's discomfort. He was disposed to question me for a reason for Miss Axtell's aberration. I was not empowered to give one, and was fully determined to impart no information until such time ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... into a folded napkin and held on the back of the neck. Taking a long breath and holding it as long as possible and repeating it while the ice is being applied is an aid. Placing the feet in hot mustard water is of decided use. Another excellent expedient is to wrap absorbent cotton round a smooth probe (piece of whalebone, for example), dip the cotton in an alum-water mixture (half teaspoonful powdered alum in a half cupful of water), and then push it into the bleeding nostril ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague

... Grease-spots from cotton or woollen materials of fast colours, absorbent pastes, purified bullock's-blood, and even common soap, are used, applied to the spot when dry. When the colours are not fast, use fuller's-earth or pulverized potter's-clay, laid in a layer over the spot, and press it with ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... the Berlin lackered floor, which is wet rubbed and dry rubbed every morning to remove the dust. The French parquet is always more or less dusty, although infinitely superior in point of cleanliness and healthiness to our absorbent floor. ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale

... and 60 degrees. | |Care must be taken that stem is not broken. | | |10 ordinary sized hubbard squashes. | | | |Whenever squashes or pumpkins in storage show | | | |signs of decay, the sound portion should be | | | |immediately canned. | | | | Tomatoes |Cool cellar or cave; can be wrapped in any absorbent paper |preferably without printing upon it, and laid upon shelves to |ripen. The paper absorbs the moisture given off by the |tomatoes and causes them to ripen uniformly. If cellar is dry |or well ventilated, ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray

... from the paler green of the lower side. It is no wonder that New England claims fame for her elms, which, loved and cared for, arch over the long village streets that give character to the homes of the descendants of the Puritan fathers. The fully grown elm presents to the sun a darkly absorbent hue, and to the passer-by who rests beneath its shade the most grateful and restful color in all ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland

... opium was administered for its narcotic effects, while gum camphor, nitre (saltpetre or potassium nitrate), and mercury (pure metal as well as certain salts) were employed for a variety of purposes. Lint, a form of absorbent material made by scraping or picking apart old woven material, also ...
— Drug Supplies in the American Revolution • George B. Griffenhagen

... there are two things to bear in mind. The action that goes on within a septic tank will only dissolve paper of tissue grade. Therefore, old bandages, pieces of absorbent cotton, and the like should go into the incinerator. Otherwise, they will clog the system and a thorough cleaning will be imperative. Secondly, the leaders which care for the water from the eaves cannot be connected to it, as entirely too much water would ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... Aaron came in just then with that damned mare. She had balked. I don't think it is the jugular. It can't be. Damn it, how he bleeds! Run into the office, Elliot, and get the absorbent cotton and the brandy. I've got to stop this somehow. ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

... Mordred. The ship is no longer important. Keep your eyes on that rag. It's a flimsy thing, composed of absorbent plastic and gooed up with a little unpolymerized resin, weighing about fifty grams. It is apparently floating harmlessly in space, just beyond the orbit of Uranus, looking as innocuous as a rag can look. But it is moving sunward ...
— Hanging by a Thread • Gordon Randall Garrett

... Tom. "Swipe a bunch of that absorbent cotton from Danny for me, will you? If he sees this he will make a fuss about it. I don't want it to get stiff on me. Hi, ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour

... added. If the mixture is too moist add a few more crumbs; if too dry add a little ketchup, milk, tomato juice, &c. Form into sausage-shaped pieces or small flat cakes. Dip into frying batter, and drop into smoking-hot fat. When a golden brown lift out, and drain on absorbent paper. Serve them, as also the golden marbles, on sippets of toast or fried bread ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill

... Wanting his coat, when he must have known that the pockets were empty! But the effort to talk had cost him something. The performance over, he relaxed and closed his eyes. Even as she watched, the sweat of weakness began to form on his forehead and under the nether lip. She wet some absorbent cotton with alcohol and refreshed his face and neck. This done, she waited at the side of the bed; but he gave no sign that he was ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... stores can furnish Scouts with this soap. Being non-poisonous, good for a gargle as well as for external use, it is superior to many other antiseptic washes. A spool of surgeons' adhesive tape, say three-quarter inch wide, a roll of sterilized absorbent cotton, and a roll of sterilized gauze will of course be included ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin

... just embraced the chemical doctrines of Van Helmont, assigned the origin of the distemper to a prevailing acid, and declared that its cure could alone [only] be effected by the copious administration of absorbent ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... duffel-bags usually sold are too light in texture and wear through. A heavier grade should be used. The small duffel-bag is very convenient for hammock and clothing, but generally the thing wanted will be at the bottom of the bag! We took with us a number of small cotton bags. As cotton is very absorbent, I had them paraffined. Each bag was tagged and all were placed in the large duffel-bag. The light fibre case described above, made just the right size for mule pack, divided by partitions, and covered with a duffel-bag, would prove ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... "Burroughs & Wellcome" first field dressings; absorbent cotton wool; boric wool; pleated lint; pleated bandages, roll bandages; adhesive tape; liquid collodion; "tabloid" ophthalmic drugs for treating snow-blindness; an assortment of "tabloid" drugs for general treatment; canvas case containing scissors, forceps, ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... evidently simply a coiled tube— coiled for the sake of packing— with occasional dilatations, and with one side-shunt, the caecum (cae.), into which the food enters, and is returned to the main line, after probably absorbent action, imperfectly understood at present. A spiral fold in this cul-de-sac {bottom-of-sack}, which is marked externally by constrictions, has a directive influence on the circulation of its contents. The student should sketch Figure 1 once or twice, and make himself ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells

... other accident. The tertiary radicles, or those emitted by the secondary ones, are not influenced, at least in the case of the bean, by geotropism; so they grow out freely in all directions. From this manner of growth of the various kinds of radicles, they are distributed, together with their absorbent hairs, throughout the surrounding soil, as Sachs has remarked, in the most advantageous manner; for the whole soil is ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... regarded the unknown McLean as a most unnecessary absorbent of Jack Ryder's time and attention and now that view was ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley

... sods and weeds in quantity are left in the road after it has been graded. The humus that will be left in the soil as the vegetable matter decays increases the porosity of the road surface making it more absorbent than soil without humus. This increases the susceptibility to softening from storm water ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg

... contact with open sores or their discharges, are likely to be dangerous. Moreover, even though these objects remain moist, the spirochetes are likely to die out within six or seven hours, and may lose their infectiousness before this. Smooth, non-absorbent surfaces, especially of metal, are unfavorable for the germ. Wash-basins, dishes, silverware, and toilet articles are usually satisfactorily disinfected by hot soapsuds, followed by drying. Barbers, dentists, nurses, and physicians who take care at least to disinfect instruments and other objects ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes

... by far the best deodorizer and absorbent, but when it cannot be easily and cheaply procured, well sifted wood or coal ashes—wood preferred—is a good substitute. The ashes must be kept dry. If they are not, they lose their absorbing, deodorizing powers. They must also be well sifted. If they are not, the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various

... hour. She said to a friend: "I have been a faithful student since I was ten years old. I have copied no master. I have studied Nature, and expressed to the best of my ability the ideas and feelings with which she has inspired me. Art is an absorbent—a tyrant. It demands heart, brain, soul, body, the entireness of the votary. Nothing less will win its highest favor. I wed art. It is my husband, my world, my life-dream, the air I breathe. I know nothing ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... the letters up again, rested his arm on the lid of the piano, his head on his arm. The more he toyed with his inclination to go to her, the more absorbent it became, and straightway it was an ungovernable longing: it came over him with a dizzy force, which made him close his eyes; and he was as helpless before it as the drunkard before his craving to drink. Standing thus, he saw with a flash of insight that, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... is an absorbent of the optimism of the world. We attract to ourselves the children of faith and hope among the common people of other nations. And these are the types we are after. They are the most vital, the least exhausted. I should not want "the flower" of other nations ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... him a dose of morphine and whiskey. Then with a quick stroke of a razor she laid open the green streak and immersed the whole arm in a strong solution of bichloride of mercury for twenty minutes. She then dressed the wound with absorbent cotton saturated with olive oil and carbolic acid, bundled her patient into a buggy, and drove forty-five miles that night to get him to a doctor. The doctor told us that only her quick action and knowledge of what to ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... The absorbent stem power of the Laminaria for taking up iodine is very large; and this element is afterwards brought out by fire in the kelp kilns of Ireland and Scotland. Sea Tang acts most beneficially against the various forms of scrofulous disease; ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... who use it immoderately for they lose appetite, become salivated, and the whole organism degenerates. The carbonized and powdered fruit is used as a dentifrice but its virtues are doubtless identical with those of any vegetable charcoal, i. e., absorbent ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera

... it is its most useful property, is undoubtedly the power which it has of absorbing great quantities of gas into itself. It is in fact what may be termed an all-round purifier. It is a deodoriser, a disinfectant, and a decoloriser. It is an absorbent of bad odours, and partially removes the smell from tainted meat. It has been used when offensive manures have been spread over soils, with the same object in view, and its use for the purification of water is well known to ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin

... way as that of the tubes with the vermin. The result is entirely different from what I expected. The white of egg does not liquefy. It simply becomes moist on the surface; and even this moisture may come from the pepsin, which is highly absorbent. Yes, I was right: if the thing were feasible, it would be an advantage for the chemists to collect their digestive drug from the stomach of the maggot. The worm, in this case, beats the pig and ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... Absorbent.—Some canvases are primed so as to absorb the oil during the process of painting. They are very useful for some kinds of work, and many painters choose them; but unless you have some experience with the working of them, ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

... of iron is a very good absorbent of ammonia, and consequently, as will be hereafter described, adds to ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring

... she has a very good effect upon the boys, and without being at all fussy, she is instilling their absorbent minds quite unconsciously with some little bits of the quaint good breeding of other days that they will never forget. They love to go to town with her, one of her first stipulations being that if I chose to include her ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... nothing better for dressing the navel than absorbent antiseptic cotton. There needs be no grease or oil upon the cotton. After the separation of the cord the navel should be dressed with a little cosmoline, still using the absorbent cotton. The navel string usually separates in a week's time; it may be delayed for twice this length ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... smoke-filled rooms and cellars. Other types which have proven more effective are designed after the fashion of the diving apparatus, and having a small tank of compressed oxygen with feeding tubes running to the mask. The oxygen combines with the contaminated air breathed through absorbent cotton or sponge and provides the wearer with the proportion of oxygen necessary to existence. And even the horses have been ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... Person. "Do I look as bad as that? No," growing suddenly quite grave, "you will have to guess again. I'll give you a cue—absorbent cotton." ...
— Gloria and Treeless Street • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... When the upper leaf surface is hairy, we know that the plant is protected in this way from perspiring too freely. Doubtless these leaves of the steeple bush, like those of other plants that choose a similar habitat, have woolly hairs beneath as an absorbent to protect their pores from clogging with the vapors that must rise from the damp ground where the plant grows. If these pores were filled with moisture from without, how could they possibly throw off the waste ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... solution. Then dust the wound with Tannic Acid, one ounce; Iodoform, one ounce; Boracic Acid, one ounce; Calomel, one dram. Mix and place in sifter top can and apply this after washing each time. Then bandage the wound by first placing clean absorbent cotton over the wound. Do not attempt to syringe a solution into an opening or some of the solution may gain entrance into the joint. Keep the animal as quiet as possible ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek

... flower-buds or leaf-buds according to the vigour of the vegetating branch. Thus if the upper part of a branch be cut away, the buds near the extremity of the remaining stem, having a greater proportional supply of nutriment, or possessing a greater facility of shooting their roots, or absorbent vessels, down the bark, will become leaf-buds, which might otherwise have been flower-buds. And the contrary as explained in note on l. ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... our mental food. It may constitute no part of the nutriment, and may often be deleterious, but it meets a want, somehow or other, and wants, however undefinable, must be recognized. It is a spur that titillates the absorbent surfaces and helps to keep them in action. It is a craving that the race is never going to outlive, and that will afford occupation and subsistence to a considerable class of its most intelligent and respectable members until the year ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... come here, avick! Devise a little drink, my son,—none of the weakest—no lemon—-hot! You understand, hot! That chap has an eye for punch; there's no mistaking an Irish fellow, Nature has endowed them richly,—fine features and a beautiful absorbent system! That's the gift! Just look at him, blowing up the fire,—isn't he a picture? Well, O'Mealey, I was fretting that we hadn't you up at Torrijos; we were enjoying life very respectably,—we established a little ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... Nobel conceived the idea (in 1866) of absorbing the liquid in some absorbent earth, and thus forming the material that is now known as dynamite, that the use of nitro-glycerine as ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford

... depends upon a superabundance of the humours of the eye, occasioned by over-secretion, or a want of power in the absorbent vessels to carry off the natural secretions of ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt



Words linked to "Absorbent" :   assimilative, assimilating, sorbent, nonabsorbent, absorbefacient, absorb, absorptive, absorber, sorbent material, sorbefacient, spongelike, sponge, receptive, thirsty, absorbency, spongy, hygroscopic, assimilatory



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