wringing wet

wringing wet

1. So wet that water can be wrung out; very wet.

   Synonyms: dripping wet, soaking wet, sopping wet.

   • 1566, Apuleius, chapter 5, in William Adlington, transl., The Golden Ass‎, London: Henry Wykes:

     […] they stridde ouer me, and slapped their buttockes vpon my face, and all bepissed me, till I was wringing wet:

   • 1621, John Ashmore (translator), Certain Selected Odes of Horace, Englished, Ad Pirrham, Book 1, Ode 5, p. ,

     I hung to th’ Sea god, after strange beseeches,

     My doublet wringing wet, and cod-piec’t breeches.

   • 1785, John Rickman, Journal of Captain Cook’s Last Voyage, to the Pacific Ocean‎, London: E. Newbery, Part 2, p. 319:

     The weather being fine and clear, we seized this opportunity to search for the leak, and, knowing it to be forwards, we moved the sails from the fore sail-room, and found them wringing wet;

   • 1937, George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier‎, London: Victor Gollancz, Part 1, Chapter 4, pp. 62-63:

     It is almost impossible to sleep on the floor, because the damp soaks up from below. I was shown mattresses which were still wringing wet at eleven in the morning.