sodden

Etymology

From Middle English sodden, soden, from Old English soden, ġesoden, from Proto-Germanic *sudanaz, past participle of Proto-Germanic *seuþaną (“to seethe; boil”). Cognate with West Frisian sean, Dutch gezoden (“seethed, boiled”) (related to Dutch zode (“swampy land”)), Low German saden, söddt, German gesotten, Swedish sjuden, Icelandic soðinn. More at seethe.

adj

1. Soaked or drenched with liquid; soggy, saturated.
   It is found, indeed, that meat, roaſted by a fire of peat or turf, is more ſodden than when coal is employed for that purpoſe. 1810, James Millar, editor, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 4th edition, volume XII, page 702
   The outfalls are choked, the dams are perforated by crabs or broken down by floods, and soon the ground becomes more and more sodden. 1895 February, James Rodway, “Nature's Triumph”, in The Popular Science Monthly, page 460
   2014, Paul Salopek, Blessed. Cursed. Claimed., National Geographic (December 2014)https://web.archive.org/web/20150212214621/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/12/pilgrim-roads/salopek-text A miraculous desert rain. We slog, dripping, into As Safi, Jordan. We drive the sodden mules through wet streets. To the town’s only landmark. To the “Museum at the Lowest Place on Earth.”
   In 2004, after heavy rain fell on sodden ground, floods put the line out of action from February until May. August 26 2020, Andrew Mourant, “Reinforced against future flooding”, in Rail, page 61
2. (archaic) Boiled.
   The thirde [drynke] is of that kinde of hony named Pechmes, whiche is made of newe wine sodden, vntill the third parte be boyled awaye […] c. 1569, Bartolomej Georgijević, “The diuersities of their drinke”, in Hugh Gough, transl., The Ofspring of the House of Ottomanno and Officers Pertaining to the Greate Turkes Court, London: Thomas Marshe
   […] howe Almidor the blacke King of Moroco was sodden to death in a cauldrone of boyling leade and brimstone. 1596, Richard Johnson, chapter 14, in The Most Famous History of the Seaven Champions of Christendome, London: Cuthbert Burbie, page 131
3. (figurative) Drunk; stupid as a result of drunkenness.
   1595, George Peele, The Old Wives’ Tale, The Malone Society Reprints, 1908, line 560, You whoreson sodden headed sheepes-face […]
   I would have done too, but alcohol makes me so ill that I couldn't (I mention this to make it clear that I don't claim any moral superiority over my more sodden colleagues). 2010, Peter Hitchens, The Cameron Delusion, page 79
4. (figurative) Dull, expressionless (of a person’s appearance).
   Remoue and march, soft and faire Gentlemen, soft and faire: double your files, as you were, faces about. Now you with the sodden face, keepe in there […] 1613, Francis Beaumont, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, London: Walter Burre, act 5, scene 1
   1795, Samuel Jackson Pratt, Gleanings through Wales, Holland and Westphalia, London: T.N. Longman and L.B. Seeley, Letter 49, pp. 444-445, Of the music-girls, many are pretty featured, but carry in every lineament, the signs of their lamentable vocation: sodden complexions, feebly glossed over by artificial daubings of the worst colour […]

verb

1. (transitive) To drench, soak or saturate.
2. (intransitive) To become soaked.