MEANING
1. To drink a liquid, or absorb ideas, customs, or qualities.
2. To take ideas, customs, or influences into the mind and gradually make them part of oneself.
Use it for
Use for deliberate drinking or ideas absorbed over time.Describe drinking or the gradual absorption of a culture or belief.
Words that belong together
- imbibe tea
- imbibe a draught
- imbibe a liquid
- imbibe a culture
- imbibe beliefs
- imbibe knowledge
On the page
They imbibed bitter tea beside the cold stove.
She imbibed the village’s suspicion before anyone explained its history.
Nearby words
Opposite meanings
Word forms
- Base
- imbibe
- Past tense
- imbibed
- Past participle
- imbibed
- Present participle
- imbibing
Full tense & aspect guide
- Present
- imbibe
- Present continuous
- am/is/are imbibing
- Present perfect
- have/has imbibed
- Present perfect continuous
- have/has been imbibing
- Past
- imbibed
- Past continuous
- was/were imbibing
- Past perfect
- had imbibed
- Past perfect continuous
- had been imbibing
- Future
- will imbibe
- Future continuous
- will be imbibing
- Future perfect
- will have imbibed
- Future perfect continuous
- will have been imbibing
Choose the auxiliary that agrees with your subject. These are constructions of one word, not separate entries.
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Usage notes
The literal sense is formal; the figurative sense takes beliefs or customs as objects and means absorb them. Sense 2: Figurative use often takes ideas, beliefs, or customs as its object; it need not imply deliberate study.
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