Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Spongy |
SpongyAdjective1. Resembling a sponge in having soft porous texture and compressibility; "spongy bread". 2. Like a sponge in being able to absorb liquids and yield it back when compressed. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "spongy" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1602. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Mining | Said of a vesicular rock structure with thin partitions between thevesicles, thus resembling a sponge. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Synonyms: SpongySynonyms: spongelike (adj), squashy (adj), squishy (adj). (additional references) |
| Synonym by domain: pumiceous (geography). |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Rarity | Adjective: rare, subtile, thin, fine, tenuous, compressible, flimsy, slight; light; cavernous, spongy. (hollow). |
Softness | Doughy, spongy, penetrable, foamy, cushiony.' |
Sponge | Adjective: cellular, spongy, spongious; honeycombed, alveolar; sintered; porous (opening). |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Spongy |
| English words defined with "spongy": Amadou, American featherfoil ♦ basivertebral vein, bog ♦ Colocynth, cork tree ♦ Diploe, diploic vein ♦ Erythrina vespertilio ♦ foam rubber, Fozy ♦ genus Lycoperdon ♦ Hottonia inflata ♦ Levulin, light, Lobelia dortmanna, Lycoperdon ♦ marshmallow, Mountain milk ♦ peat bog, Phrygian stone, Plate paper, potato wart, Pumiced ♦ sponge cake, Sponge lead, Spongious, Spongy lead ♦ turbinal, turbinate, turbinate bone ♦ vena basivertebralis, vena diploica ♦ water gillyflower, water lobelia. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "spongy": hypothallus ♦ iron froth ♦ lake ore, Lemster Ore, Leukoencephalopathy, limnite ♦ marsh ore, mustard gold ♦ photostimulable luminescence, progressive spongiform leukoencephalopathy ♦ spongiostratum. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "spongy": Fozy, Fuzz ♦ Swamp. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised. (Futurama; writing credit: Lance Smith; Carl Colpaert) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
References | |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | The spongy tissue contains smooth muscles, fibrous tissues, spaces, veins, and arteries. (references) | |
Between the vertebrae are round, spongy pads of cartilage called discs that act much like shock absorbers. (references) | ||
The penis contains two chambers, called the corpora cavernosa, which run the length of the organ (see figure 1). A spongy tissue fills the chambers. (references) | ||
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Spongy" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Spongy" is used about 66 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 100% | 66 | 41,290 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "spongy": spongy heart ♦ spongy lead ♦ spongy platinum ♦ spongy rot ♦ spongy top. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "spongy": spongy-brain. | |
Ending with "spongy": blood-spongy, fibrous-to-spongy. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
spongy | 16 |
bone spongy | 7 |
brakes spongy | 6 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "spongy"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | sfungjeror (fungous), poroz (porous), birabira. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | ممتص (absorbent, absorptive), مسامي (cancellous, pored, porous), مشبع بالمال, إسفنجي. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | рохкав (light, loose), шуплест (honeycomb, poriferous), шуплив (porous), гъбест (pithy), еластичен (distensible, ductile, elastic, pliable, resilient, rubbery, springy, stretch, stretchy, supple), блатист (boggy, logged, miry, paludal, quaggy, sloughy, soggy, swampy, uliginose, uliginous), порест (cellular, honeycomb, poriferous, porous). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 康 (peaceful), 吸水. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | pórovitý (porous), nasáklý (soppy), houbovitý (fungicidal). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | svampet. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | sponsachtig (cavernous), sponzig. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Esperanto | spongeca, sponga. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | نرم ومتخلخل , نرم (Downy, Effeminate, Fine, Floppy, Levigate, Limber, Lithe, Mellow, Plastic, Pliant, Silken, Silky, Sleek, Slick, Smooth, Soft, Suave, Supple, Tractable, Velvet), اسفنجی (Cancellous), شبیه اسفنج . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | huokoinen (porous). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | spongieux (blown sponge, sponge). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | schwammig (bloated, flabbily, fungous, podgy, spongily, woolly). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | σπογγώδης (foamy, pumiceous). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | ספו'י. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | szivacsos (bibulous, cancellated, fungous, porous, spoungy), likacsos (honeycombed, poriferous), átázott (soak, soaked, sodden, soggy, sopping, soppy). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | keropos (hollow, porous, rarefied, rotten). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | spugnoso. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 海綿状組" (spongy tissue). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | かいめ"じょうそしき (spongy tissue). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | thoagagh, faastguinagh. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | ongyspay esponjoso. (various references) spongios (bibulous), buretos. (various references) губчатый (fungous, porous). (various references) sunđerast (spumous), porozan (porous). (various references) esponjoso (cancellous, cavernous, foamy, porous, soggy). (various references) svampig, porös (fungous, porous). (various references) เป็นรูพรุน, นุ่มและเปียกชุ่ม, หยุ่นและ"ู"ซับน้ำ. (various references) süngersi, sünger gibi, yumuşak (benignant, bland, ductile, easygoing, effeminate, flabby, flaccid, floppy, gentle, heartthrob, kid glove, kindly, lax, lenient, light, limp, malleable, mellow, mild, pulpy, smooth, soft, soft boiled, supple, tender, velvet, yielding), gözenekli (poriferous, porous), delikli (cavernous, cribriform, having holes, hollow, peekaboo, perforate, perforated, porous, punched). (various references) губчастий (fozy), абсорбуючий (absorbent), багнистий (miry, oozy, queachy, squashy). (various references) như bọt biển; mềm xốp, lỗ rỗ. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Misspellings | |
"Spongy" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: pongy, Pongyi, spog, spondy, spongey, spongi, spongs. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "spongy" (pronounced spu"njē) |
| 4 | -u" n j ē | bungee, grungy. |
| 3 | -n j ē | basenji, dingy, Kanji, mangy, rangy, stingy, twangy. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "g-n-o-p-s-y" | |
-1 letter: pongs. | |
-2 letters: goys, gyps, nogs, nosy, pogy, pong, pons, pony, posy, snog, song. | |
-3 letters: gos, goy, gyp, nog, nos, ons, ops, son, sop, soy, spy, syn, yon. | |
-4 letters: go, no, on, op, os, oy, so, yo. | |
| Words containing the letters "g-n-o-p-s-y" | |
+2 letters: gryphons, polygons, posingly, pyrogens, spongily. | |
+3 letters: biopsying, epigynous, genotypes, polygenes, sporogony, syphoning. | |
+4 letters: autopsying, gymnosperm, gynophores, gyroplanes, hypogynies, hypogynous, imposingly, miscopying, oligopsony, perigynous, polygonies, polygonums, polygynies, polygynous, sonography, sportingly. | |
+5 letters: angioplasty, granophyres, gymnosperms, gymnospermy, necropsying, opsonifying, phylogenies, physiognomy, playgrounds, polygeneses, polygenesis, postsyncing, promisingly, prophesying, proselyting, psychogenic, pycnogonids, saponifying, scenography, stenography, stenotyping, syncopating, synopsizing, trypsinogen. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Quotations: Non-fiction 8. Usage Frequency | 9. Expressions 10. Expressions: Internet 11. Translations: Modern 12. Derivations | 13. Rhymes 14. Anagrams 15. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
