Home › Glossary › Letter O

Osmosis

Science
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The movement of water through a selectively permeable membrane toward greater concentration.

Detailed Definition
Osmosis offers poets an image of gradual exchange across boundaries. Water moves without spectacle, seeking balance through a membrane that allows some passage and prevents others. A poem may use osmosis for affection, influence, migration, or the way a place enters a person over time. Its scientific precision can sharpen metaphors of longing: what crosses into the self, what remains outside, and what pressures make change unavoidable.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Through osmosis, water passes toward the saltier cell” provides a precise model for movement across a membrane; A poet can write, “Sadness entered by osmosis,” implying a gradual, almost unnoticed transfer of feeling; “The roots drink by osmosis from the dark soil” grounds a garden poem in biological process; In a poem about intimacy, “We changed each other by osmosis, without opening a door” uses the term to portray quiet influence
Additional Notes
Osmosis moves water across a membrane toward a more concentrated solution; it is important in cells, roots, and circulation.
Other Meanings of “Osmosis”
Also Known As
Osmotic Diffusion
Skip to main content