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porosity

Other forms: porosities

Porosity is the quality of being porous, or full of tiny holes. Liquids go right through things that have porosity.

Go back far enough and you’ll find that porosity stems from the Greek word poros for "pore," which means “passage.” So something with porosity lets things through. Most pants have porosity, as you unfortunately notice when you spill soup on them — the soup goes right through. On the other hand, a raincoat has no porosity because it's waterproof. If your roof is leaking during the rain, it has some porosity, which is a problem. You can remember porosity by imagining liquids pouring through things.

Definitions of porosity
  1. noun
    the property of being porous; being able to absorb fluids
    synonyms: porousness
    see moresee less
    antonyms:
    solidity
    the consistency of a solid
    types:
    sponginess
    the porosity of a sponge
    permeability, permeableness
    the property of something that can be pervaded by a liquid (as by osmosis or diffusion)
    absorbency
    the property of being absorbent
    type of:
    body, consistence, consistency, eubstance
    the property of holding together and retaining its shape
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