absorbent

Etymology

From Latin absorbēns, present active participle of absorbeō (“absorb”).

adj

1. Having the ability or tendency to absorb; able to soak up liquid easily; absorptive.
   Those paper towels were amazingly absorbent. That was quite a spill.

noun

1. Anything which absorbs.
   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. (physiology, pluralized, now rare) The vessels by which the processes of absorption are carried on, as the lymphatics in animals, the extremities of the roots in plants.
3. (medicine) Any 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. (chemistry) A liquid used in the process of separating gases or volatile liquids, in oil refining.