Word of the Day Archive
Friday April 29, 2011
osmose \oz-MOHS\
, verb:
1. To gradually or unconsciously assimilate some principle or object.
2. To undergo osmosis.
They set off assuming that somehow or other the information that they were on their way would osmose through the settlement or that Mme. Legrand might mention in passing that she'd asked them to come.
-- Maeve Binchy, Marian Keyes, Cathy Kelly, Irish girls about town
Not a man osmose but he hath the wit to lose his hair.
-- William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors
Osmose comes from the biological term osmosis, "the tendency of a fluid, usually water, to pass through a semipermeable membrane into a solution where the solvent concentration is higher, thus equalizing the concentrations of materials on either side of the membrane." Osmosis derives from endosmose, with endo- being French for "inward" and osmos meaning "push, thrust" in Greek.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for osmose
