These verbs mean to cover, fill or permeate with water or other liquid. Wet is the most general word and may indicate all degrees of this condition. When not otherwise qualified, wet generally implies the agency of water.

• Wet a corner of the facecloth; The girl wet her hair before setting it.

But any liquid can wet , and in a special sense the word refers to urination: The baby wet his nappy.

To moisten or dampen is to make or become somewhat wet . Moisten stresses the act of wetting slightly: to moisten the lips with the tongue while speaking; to moisten a gummed label. Dampen emphasizes the moist condition that results: to dampen a shirt before ironing it. Both words may imply diffusion of moisture, but moisten more often indicates a localized wetting.

• He moistened the soil round the plant; The morning dew dampened the ground.

In a figurative sense, dampen means depress: He was a wet blanket, dampening everyone’s spirits.

Soak and drench mean to wet thoroughly. Soak often implies immersion. To soak something is to place it in liquid and leave it long enough for the liquid to act upon it: to soak dirty dishes in warm, soapy water to loosen the food particles; to soak a sprained ankle in Epsom-salt solution to lessen the swelling. Drench , on the other hand, typically involves the pouring down of liquid from above. It is a stronger word than soak , emphasizing the cause or instant effect of wetting where soak stresses the final result: drenched by a sudden downpour; soaked to the skin. When drench , like soak , involves immersion, it implies an excessive rather than a normal wetting: soaking in a warm bath; a guest in evening dress drenched and bedraggled by a dunking in the swimming pool. Both soak and drench may mean to leave sopping wet : drenched with sweat; soaking wet with perspiration. But soak stresses permeation or absorption, a passing through the pores of something: Water soaks into the soil. Drench suggests that excess liquid is running off, not sinking in: drenched and dripping trees. In a figurative sense, drench suggests a flood of something spilling over everything like liquid ?drowning, saturating: a hill drenched with sunlight; a room drenched with colour. Soak focuses on absorption, meaning to take up eagerly or readily, as if by drinking in through the pores: to soak up knowledge like a sponge; a sunbather soaking up the sun.

Steep , more strongly than soak , stresses immersion in a liquid and wetting for a purpose. One may soak or steep a thing to soften, saturate or cleanse it; but steeping may also have a more radical effect: to soak dried peas before cooking them; to steep barley in water until it starts to germinate. Steeping frequently involves the extraction of some constituent.

• In the making of corn starch, kernels of corn are steeped in a weak solution of sulphur dioxide in order to loosen the hull and remove the germ containing to corn oil.

Specifically, in general use, steeping often indicates the extraction and soaking up of an essence: tea leaves steeped in boiling water. Figuratively, steep implies saturation through soaking , a making something part of the self, as if by total immersion in it: a scholar steeped in medieval lore; a child steeped in his parents?prejudice.