Search for crossword answers and clues
Sponges do it
Answer for the clue "Sponges do it ", 6 letters:
absorb
Alternative clues for the word absorb
Word definitions for absorb in dictionaries
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
Absorb \Ab*sorb"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Absorbed ; p. pr. & vb. n. Absorbing .] [L. absorbere; ab + sorbere to suck in, akin to Gr. ?: cf. F. absorber.] To swallow up; to engulf; to overwhelm; to cause to disappear as if by swallowing up; to use up; to include. ...
Usage examples of absorb.
Their structure is remarkable, and their functions complex, for they secrete, absorb, and are acted on by various stimulants.
These trials were made with cut offleaves, and it occurred to me that this circumstance might influence the result, as the footstalks would not perhaps absorb water quickly enough to supply the glands as they continued to secrete.
I have no doubt that this was due to the prolonged irritation of the glands, as the starch continued to absorb the secretion.
Whenever the leaves remain inflected during several days over seeds, it is clear that they absorb some matter from them.
The glands of Drosera absorb matter from living seeds, which are injured or killed by the secretion.
Besides the glands, both surfaces of the leaves and the pedicels of the tentacles bear numerous minute papillae, which absorb carbonate of ammonia, an infusion of raw meat, metallic salts, and probably many other substances, but the absorption of matter by these papillae never induces inflection.
As such minute doses of the salts of ammonia affect the leaves, we may feel almost sure that Drosera absorbs and profits by the amount, though small, which is present in rainwater, in the same manner as other plants absorb these same salts by their roots.
It appears from these several facts that digitaline causes inflection, and poisons the glands which absorb a moderately large amount.
If, however, meat had been placed on the glands of these same tentacles before they had begun to secrete copiously and to absorb, they undoubtedly would have affected the exterior rows.
The experiments proving that the leaves are capable of true digestion, and that the glands absorb the digested matter, are given in detail in the sixth chapter.
The secretion with animal matter in solution is then drawn by capillary attraction over the whole surface of the leaf, causing all the glands to secrete and allowing them to absorb the diffused animal matter.
Utricularia,-it is probable that these processes absorb excrementitious and decaying animal matter.
These probably sink down besmeared with the secretion and rest on the small sessile glands, which, if we may judge by the analogy of Drosophyllum, then pour forth their secretion and afterwards absorb the digested matter.
By comparing many different hairs, it was evident that the glands first absorb the carbonate, and that the effect thus produced travels down the hairs from cell to cell.
The glands, however, absorb very much more slowly than those of Drosera.