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sodden

Archaic Terms
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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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

Thoroughly soaked, saturated, or drenched with liquid; waterlogged; also means dull, expressionless, or stupefied, especially from excessive drinking or dullness.

Detailed Definition
“Sodden” conveys waterlogged heaviness—sodden clothes, sodden minds. In poetry, it symbolizes depression or stagnation. The term’s dullness mirrors lethargy. Poets use it to explore how saturation numbs, where soddens lose vitality, reinforcing themes of inertia, despair, and environmental influence in descriptive and meditative contexts.
Example
Example in poetry:
“His clothes were sodden from the storm,” in a gothic scene; In Coleridge: “The mariner’s clothes were sodden with brine”; “Her spirit was sodden with grief”; “The earth lay sodden after the flood”; “Sodden bread fed the starving”; The knight’s armor was sodden, but his will dry.
Additional Notes
“Sodden” describes not just wetness but lifeless heaviness; in Gothic or depressive poetry, “sodden fields” or “sodden eyes” convey despair, inertia, or spiritual numbness, far beyond mere dampness.
Also Known As
soaked waterlogged saturated droukit
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