absorbent

comparative more absorbent · superlative most absorbent

1. Having the ability or tendency to absorb; able to soak up liquid easily; absorptive.First known use First attested in the early 18ᵗʰ century.

   Those paper towels were amazingly absorbent. That was quite a spill.

plural absorbents

1. Anything which absorbs.First known use First attested in the early 18ᵗʰ century.

   In the Southern Ocean the winter is not so excessively cold, but the summer is far less hot, for the clouded sky seldom allows the sun to warm the ocean, itself a bad absorbent of heat: and hence the mean temperature of the year […] is low.

   1839, Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle, page 225, Forgotten Books

2. archaicmedicineThe vessels by which the processes of absorption are carried on, as the lymphatics in animals, the extremities of the roots in plants.First known use First attested in the mid 18ᵗʰ century.
3. medicineAny substance which absorbs and neutralizes acid fluid in the stomach and bowels, as magnesia, chalk, etc.; also a substance, e.g., iodine, which acts on the absorbent vessels so as to reduce enlarged and indurated parts.
4. physicalchemistryA liquid used in the process of separating gases or volatile liquids, in oil refining.