Verb

(en verb)

(lb) To hold inside.

*

At half-past nine on this Saturday evening, the parlour of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors.In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across. Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria,

(lb) To include as a part.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2014-04-21, volume=411, issue=8884, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Subtle effects , passage=Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese, a silvery metal, began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated.}}

(lb) To put constraint upon; to restrain; to confine; to keep within bounds.

* (Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)

The king's person contains the unruly people from evil occasions.

* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)

Fear not, my lord: we can contain ourselves.

*

Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging. No omnibus, cab, or conveyance ever built could contain a young man in such a rage. His mother lived at Pembridge Square, which is four good measured miles from Lincoln's Inn.

To have as an element.

To restrain desire; to live in continence or chastity.

* Bible, vii. 9.

But if they can not contain , let them marry.

Verb

To include so that it no longer has separate existence; to overwhelm; to cause to disappear as if by swallowing up; to incorporate; to assimilate; to take in and use up.

* (rfdate) :

Dark oblivion soon absorbs them all.

* (rfdate) :

The large cities absorb the wealth and fashion.

(obsolete) To engulf, as in water; to swallow up.

*

To suck up; to drink in; to imbibe; as a sponge or as the lacteals of the body; to chemically take in.

(transitive, physics, chemistry) To take in energy and convert it, as

# (physics) in receiving a physical impact or vibration without recoil.

# (physics) in receiving sound energy without repercussion or echo.

# (physics) taking in radiant energy and converting it to a different form of energy, like heat.

Heat, light, and electricity are absorbed in the substances into which they pass.

To engross or engage wholly; to occupy fully; as, absorbed in study or in the pursuit of wealth.

To occupy or consume time.

Assimilate mentally.

(business) To assume or pay for as part of a commercial transaction.

To defray the costs.

To accept or purchase in quantity.