a. Chiefly dial. and U.S. Also 9 dial. zoggy. [f. SOG sb.1 or v.]
In B. Jonson Ev. Man out of Hum. III. ii. [viii.] (‘this greene and soggie multitude’) the correct reading is prob. ‘foggie,’ a common word at that date.
1. Of land: Soaked with water or moisture; boggy, swampy, marshy.
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb. (1757), 49. If the ground falls small, then it may lie soggy and spungy.
1805. W. H. Marshall, Rur. Econ. W. Eng. (ed. 2), I. 398. Zoggy, wet, boggy.
1869. B. Taylor, Byeways of Europe, I. 247. The soil, yesterday as dry as a cinder, already looked soggy and drenched.
1896. I. B. Potter, in Godey’s Mag., April, 351/2. These country roads are … frost-laden and wet, and soft and soggy in spring and fall.
2. Of things: Saturated with wet; soppy, soaked.
1863. B. Taylor, Han. Thurston, xii. 155. He looked out on … fields of soggy, soaked snow.
1886. W. H. Gibson, in Harper’s Mag., Dec., 98/1. The bird is not here for food; no crumbly, soggy timber would thus speak out for him.
1897. Kipling, Captains Courageous, i. 20. All he brought up was a soggy packet of cigarettes.
b. Resulting from, caused by, moistness or wetness.
1876. Duhring, Dis. Skin, 126. The skin … is observed to be of a whitish or yellowish color, and to have a soggy appearance.
1881. W. H. Gibson, in Harper’s Mag., Oct., 650. Every footstep giving out a soggy wheeze from his old wet boots.
3. Of bread: Sodden, heavy.
1868. F. Whymper, Trav. Alaska, v. 61. We varied a diet of soggy bread with a kind of thin paste or soup of flour and water; not very good ‘working’ grub.
1903. T. P.’s Weekly, 4 Sept., 436/1.
| Bread is burnt and soggy, | |
| Red and raw the meat. | |
| Still, it doesn’t matter— | |
| Who has time to eat? |
4. Of persons: Dull, spiritless.
1896. Advance (Chicago), 16 July, 88/1. The Slavs are a passive, gregarious, soggy race.
1911. Galsworthy, Patrician, II. xxi. 277. They [passers-by] looked soft, soggy, without pride or will.
5. Moist, close, sultry.
1896. Baden-Powell, Matabele Campaign, xix. (1897), 490. We rattled along through the bush,… all the time in deep, soggy heat.
1901. W. Churchill, The Crisis, II. xiv. 242. The Saturdday had been soggy and warm.
Hence Sogginess.
1848. Buffalo Daily Republic, 28 July, 2/4. Down—down—step by step, with the shapeless ‘sogginess’ of a bag of wet wool, tumbled his animate mass of flesh, blood and bone, and sneaked off!
1884. J. G. Bourke, Snake-Dance of Moquis, xv. 173. The sogginess of the roads made slow marching necessary.
1900. Westm. Gaz., 16 Aug., 5/3. The sogginess of the ground.
