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 ve el 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′ine , porous quality; Spong′ing-house , a bailiff's lodging-house for debtors in his custody before their committal to prison; Spon′giōle , the spongy ti ue of a root-tip; Spon′giolite , a fo il 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 ma 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 .]