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SPONGY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
Irregular inflected forms: spongier , spongiest
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Like a sponge in being able to absorb liquids and yield it back when compressed
Synonyms:
spongelike; spongy
Classified under:
Similar:
absorbent; absorptive (having power or capacity or tendency to absorb or soak up something (liquids or energy etc.))
Derivation:
sponge (a porous mass of interlacing fibers that forms the internal skeleton of various marine animals and usable to absorb water or any porous rubber or cellulose product similarly used)
sponginess (the porosity of a sponge)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Easily squashed; resembling a sponge in having soft porous texture and compressibility
Example:
spongy bread
Synonyms:
spongelike; spongy; squashy; squishy
Classified under:
Similar:
soft (yielding readily to pressure or weight)
Derivation:
sponge (primitive multicellular marine animal whose porous body is supported by a fibrous skeletal framework; usually occurs in sessile colonies)
sponginess (the property of being able to occupy less space)
sponginess (the porosity of a sponge)
Context examples:
A light and spongy bone that is cubical in shape.
(Ethmoid Bone, NCI Thesaurus)
To determine whether the loss of function in aged OPCs was reversible, the researchers transplanted older OPCs from aged rats into the soft, spongy brains of younger animals.
(Cambridge scientists reverse ageing process in rat brain stem cells, University of Cambridge)
Bone marrow, the spongy tissue inside most of our bones, produces red blood cells as well as immune cells that help fight off infections and heal injuries.
(Researchers unearth secret tunnels between the skull and the brain, National Institutes of Health)
Bone marrow is the spongy tissue inside some of your bones, such as your hip and thigh bones.
(Bone Marrow Diseases, NIH)
Your bone marrow is the spongy tissue inside some of your bones, such as your hip and thigh bones.
(Myelodysplastic Syndromes, NIH National Cancer Institute)
To achieve grey-white matter compartmentalization, the researchers cut the spongy scaffold into a donut shape and populated it with rat neurons.
(Bioengineers create functional 3D brain-like tissue, NIH)
It looked rather spongy and soppy, I thought, as I carried my eye over the great dull waste that lay across the river; and I could not help wondering, if the world were really as round as my geography book said, how any part of it came to be so flat.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Spongy degeneration of central nervous system , spongy degeneration of white matter a rare hereditary form of leukodystrophy of early onset in which widespread demyelination and vacuolation of cerebral white matter gives it a spongy appearance; there is mental retardation, megalocephaly, atony of neck muscles, limb spasticity, and blindness, with death in infancy.
(Canavan Disease, NICHD)
The key to generating the brain-like tissue was the creation of a novel composite structure that consisted of two biomaterials with different physical properties: a spongy scaffold made out of silk protein and a softer, collagen-based gel.
(Bioengineers create functional 3D brain-like tissue, NIH)
