Waterlog

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To excessively soak an item or ground with liquid, making it heavy or ineffective while hindering proper functionality through saturation
2. To burden a material or surface with an overload of water, resulting in diminished effectiveness and possible obstruction of use
3. To cause something to become overly saturated with water, leading to impaired use or function

Etymology: The word is a plain compound, made from "water" and "log" in the sense of a heavy, waterlogged piece of timber. The tree of ancestors shows "log" tracing back through Middle English "logge" to Old Norse "liggjader", a term for something that lies heavy and sluggish, related to the verb "lie" and to the idea of an object sinking and staying put. A waterlogged vessel or piece of wood was one that had taken on so much water that it sank low and could no longer float, and that is the picture the word preserves. The English "log" in this sense had been used for a block of wood since the Middle English period, so the compound describes timber, and later ships and land, in a state of being saturated. The verb form came to mean soaking something with water until it can absorb no more, and the same logic later applied to fields and soil.

Synonyms: soak, saturate, drench, flood, inundate

Antonyms: dry, dehydrate, evaporate, desiccate, absorb