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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
permeate
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
air
▪ Steam drifted upwards; the aroma of soup permeated the air.
▪ And the smell of excrement, used as fertilizer, permeated the air.
▪ Sunlight streamed into the church and through the stained glass windows, and a smell of grass and flowers permeated the air.
▪ The smell of people and food permeated the air.
▪ A great sense of relief and understanding permeates the air.
▪ Terror seemed to permeate the very air.
▪ He tried again, uncaring that the tramp was motionless by now, the stench of excrement already beginning to permeate the air.
aspect
▪ Money values permeate every aspect of our existence.
▪ The country was on the brink of war; uncertainty permeated every aspect of daily life.
▪ The names of certain prison governors whose personal positive qualities permeated every aspect of their prisons tend to be long remembered.
▪ The problem lies in ethical anomie, philosophical befuddlement and the hypocrisy that today permeates every aspect of our so-called civilized world.
▪ Their role as financial information providers is permeating all aspects of business.
▪ This creativity permeates every aspect of Homer's work.
life
▪ The faith had permeated their lives to such a degree that it became part of their identity.
▪ Such motivations cut across different media and remind us again of the extent to which media permeate our lives.
society
▪ Racism has permeated Western society, and Western psychiatry is no exception.
▪ Such sanctions permeated society and popped up even in the most unlikely places.
▪ To increase overall public security, the corruption permeating this society must be uprooted.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Soon the gas had permeated the entire area.
▪ The smell of smoke permeated the house.
▪ There is a culture of racism that permeates the entire organization.
▪ Toxic chemicals may permeate the soil, threatening the environment.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Many lively strains were present in that hybrid, and they permeated all religious practices.
▪ Money values permeate every aspect of our existence.
▪ Smoke from smouldering sandalwood permeated everything.
▪ Sunlight streamed into the church and through the stained glass windows, and a smell of grass and flowers permeated the air.
▪ The rain had finished, leaving in its wake a vast, permeating leakage, the river noise of runoff.
▪ There is evidence that the same trends have begun to permeate the private sector.
▪ Water is a primal element; it permeates everything, including us.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Permeate

Permeate \Per"me*ate\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Permeated; p. pr. & vb. n. Permeating.] [L. permeatus, p. p. of permeare to permeate; per + meare to go, pass.]

  1. To pass through the pores or interstices of; to penetrate and pass through without causing rupture or displacement; -- applied especially to fluids which pass through substances of loose texture; as, water permeates sand.
    --Woodward.

  2. To enter and spread through; to pervade.

    God was conceived to be diffused throughout the whole world, to permeate and pervade all things.
    --Cudworth.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
permeate

1650s, from Latin permeatus, past participle of permeare "to pass through" (see permeable). Related: Permeated; permeating.

Wiktionary
permeate

n. A watery by-product of milk production. vb. 1 To pass through the pores or interstices of; to penetrate and pass through without causing rupture or displacement; applied especially to fluids which pass through substances of loose texture; as, water permeates sand. 2 To enter and spread through; to pervade.

WordNet
permeate
  1. v. spread or diffuse through; "An atmosphere of distrust has permeated this administration"; "music penetrated the entire building" [syn: pervade, penetrate, interpenetrate, diffuse, imbue]

  2. pass through; "Water permeates sand easily" [syn: percolate, sink in, filter]

  3. penetrate mutually or be interlocked; "The territories of two married people interpenetrate a lot" [syn: interpenetrate]

Usage examples of "permeate".

She dried their dripping bodies and brought them lounging robes dyed with red alizarin and went back to her tiny string instrument that permeated the conversation, listening.

Slowly, he took in what lay before him, sensing a faint green that permeated the ancient bristlecone pine on the far side of the open space, a tree gnarled and seemingly dwarfed by the taller firs and pines of the forest, yet with a depth and presence that made the other ancient evergreen monarchs less than shadows.

To a sailor like de la Mery it was obvious just by his carriage, an air of easy authority that permeated the prisms of his glass, that he was the captain.

If the soul is body and permeates the entire body-mass, still even in this entire permeation the blending must be in accord with what occurs in all cases of bodily admixing.

New Atlantan Feed had a higher sulfur content that, when burned, produced a plutonic reek that permeated everything for dozens of miles downwind, making the fires seem much closer than they really were.

They consist chiefly of granulitic quartzose schists and felspathic gneisses, permeated in places by strings and veins of pegmatite.

It seemed the atmosphere of Rampling Gate permeated my simplest written descriptions and wove its way richly into the plots and characters I created.

Thus all normal space was permeated by Arisian life-spores, and thus upon all Earth-like or Tellurian planets there came into being races of creatures more or less resembling Arisians in the days of their racial youth.

If you remember, the Cassiopeians have a triploid reproductive system, a simple biological fact which permeates the whole of their language, their culture, their metaphysics.

She envisioned a red mist permeating her thoughts, an ungraspable force compelling her to its will and not her own.

Like nearly all the land animals of Jupiter, as I was to learn later, they were ungulate, hoofs evidently being rendered necessary by the considerable areas of hardened lava on the surface of the planet, as well as by the bits of lava rock which permeate the soil.

Neither map nor chart graced the unplastered walls, the unpainted furniture of the room was sadly in need of repair, while a musty odor permeated the room.

The evening air was rich with odours--the oily reek of the rag torches in counterpoint to the dusky cow-dung cook-fires and the curry and garlic that permeated the audience, along with the not unpleasant smell of unsoaped bodies and the savour of dust which had been dampened for the show.

This conviction plainly shows that Origen was dealing with a different kind of Christianity, though his view that a mere relative distinction existed here may have its justification in the fact, that the untheological Christianity of the age with which he compared his own was already permeated by Hellenic elements and in a very great measure secularised.

A rank and fetid odor permeated the air, a smell that whispered of things dying and fouled.