soak
v.v. to leave something in a liquid for a long time so it becomes very wet. You do this to clean dirty clothes or to make dry food soft before cooking.
v. to immerse something in a liquid for a period of time to saturate it or to remove dirt. Often used with 'in' to indicate the medium.
You should soak the beans in water overnight.
After a long day of hiking, I like to soak my feet in warm water to relax.
The chef recommends that you soak the wooden skewers for at least thirty minutes to prevent them from burning on the grill during the high-heat cooking process.
From Middle English soken, from Old English socian (“to soak, steep”, literally “to cause to suck (up)”), from Proto-Germanic sukōną (“to soak”), causative of Proto-Germanic sūkaną (“to suck”). Cognate with Middle Dutch soken (“to cause to suck”). More at suck.
The verb is transitive when an object is being wetted, but can be intransitive to describe the act of resting in liquid.
I soaked with waterI soaked it in waterSoak requires the preposition 'in' for the liquid, and usually requires a direct object if you are wetting something specific.