Sponge

Sponge, spunj, n. a fixed, usually marine, animal with pores in the body-wall and without tentacles: the fibrous framework of such, remarkable for its power of sucking up water: any sponge-like substance, as dough before it is kneaded and formed: any cringing hanger-on or parasite, a drunken fellow: an instrument for cleaning cannon after a discharge: the heel of a horse's shoe.—v.t. to wipe with a sponge: to wipe out, absorb up, with a sponge: to wipe out completely: to destroy.—v.i. to suck in, as a sponge: to gain by mean tricks, to live on others by some mean subterfuge or other.—ns. Sponge′cake, a very light sweet cake of flour, eggs, and sugar; Sponge′let, a little sponge.—adjs. Sponge′ous, Spon′giōse, Spongiolit′ic.—n. Spong′er, one who uses a sponge: a person or vessel engaged in fishing for sponges: an apparatus for sponging cloth by means of a perforated adjustable cylinder: a sponge or parasite.—adjs. Spongic′olous, inhabiting sponges; Spong′iform, resembling a sponge: porous.—ns. Spong′iness, porous quality; Spong′ing-house, a bailiff's lodging-house for debtors in his custody before their committal to prison; Spon′giōle, the spongy tissue of a root-tip; Spon′giolite, a fossil sponge spicule.—adj. Spongoid (spong′goid).—ns. Spongologist (spong-gol′ō-jist), one devoted to the study of sponges; Spongology (spong-gol′ō-ji), the knowledge about sponges.—adj. Spong′y, like a sponge, absorptive: of open texture, porous: wet and soft: drunken.—Set a sponge, to leaven a small mass of dough with which to leaven a large quantity; Throw up the sponge, to acknowledge defeat by throwing into the air the sponge with which a boxer is rubbed down between rounds: to give up any contest. [O. Fr. esponge—L. spongia—Gr. sponggia.]