Etymology

soak

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Today it means: To be saturated with liquid by being immersed in it. Full definition →

Middle English soken ← Old English socian ← Proto-Germanic *sukōną
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The story

  1. Proto-Germanic · derived from*sūkaną“to suck”
  2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*sukōną“to soak”
  3. Old English · inherited fromsocian“to soak, steep”
  4. Middle English · inherited fromsoken
  5. English todaysoak

From Middle English soken, from Old English socian (“to soak, steep”, literally “to cause to suck (up)”), from Proto-Germanic *sukōną (“to soak”), causative of Proto-Germanic *sūkaną (“to suck”). Cognate with Middle Dutch soken (“to cause to suck”). More at suck.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.