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saturate

/ˈsætʃəreɪt//ˈsætʃəreɪt/·verb
to fill something completely, until no more can be absorbed
Fig. 1 — Rain falls on a patch of ground, and the first drops simply disappear into it without a sound, each one sinking away as the level held inside the soil creeps up a notch.
01Definition

To saturate is to fill something until it can hold no more. The Latin root satur means 'full of food' — the same fullness as in 'satisfied' — and every use keeps the idea of a limit reached: rain saturates the soil until water stands on the surface; a market saturated with apps has no room for one more; a saturated solution will accept no more salt, however long you stir. The defining moment is the saturation point — where absorbing ends and overflowing begins.

02In use
  • iAfter a week of rain the ground was so saturated that new storms ran straight off into the rivers.
  • iiThe streaming market is saturated, yet new services continue to proliferate.
  • iiiKeep adding sugar until the solution is saturated and no more will dissolve.
03Collocations
  • saturated with
  • reach saturation point
  • market saturation
  • a saturated solution
  • saturated fats

Family saturation (noun) · saturated (adjective)

04Relations

=soak, drench, permeate, flood, suffuse

≠drain, deplete, dry out

06TOEFL & IELTS

A double-duty science and business word. TOEFL chemistry and earth-science passages rely on the literal sense — saturated solutions, saturated soil and groundwater — while economics texts use 'market saturation' for growth that has run out of room. IELTS health readings add 'saturated fats'. The high-value phrase for essays is 'reach saturation point': a precise way to say that further growth is impossible.

07Asked
What does a saturated market mean?
A market so full that demand for the product is already met — every likely buyer has one, so new entrants can only take share, not create it. Growth stalls not from a bad product but from a full room. The scene above is the same physics in soil: the ground takes drop after drop until it is full, and then identical rain simply pools on top, with nowhere left to go.
What is saturation point?
The exact threshold where absorbing stops and overflowing begins — the moment the soil, the solution or the market can take no more. It is the word's most essay-useful phrase because it names a tipping point precisely: 'the sector has reached saturation point' says growth is now structurally impossible, not merely slow. Everything before the point is absorbed; everything after just sits on the surface.
What is a saturated solution in chemistry?
A liquid holding all the solute it can dissolve at that temperature — add more salt and it sits undissolved at the bottom. The temperature clause matters: heat the water and the limit rises, so a solution saturated when cold has room again when warm. Cool a hot saturated solution carefully and you get the strange in-between state chemists call supersaturated.
Is 'saturated fat' related to this meaning?
Yes — same 'filled to the limit' idea, applied to chemistry. A saturated fat's carbon chain is 'full' of hydrogen atoms, with no room for more because it holds no double bonds; unsaturated fats have gaps. The nutrition debate is a separate topic, but the word is doing its ordinary job: saturated means no vacancy left to fill.
What does it mean to be saturated with something?
Soaked or permeated to capacity — a cloth saturated with water, a report saturated with jargon, a childhood saturated in music. The preposition is with, and the sense stretches from the literal (thoroughly wet) to the figurative (thoroughly pervaded). Either way the claim is totality: not merely a lot of the thing, but as much as the vessel can hold.