Immerse
verb
Indicative past, past participle: immersed; present participle: immersing.
Etymology: from Latin immers-, participial stem of immergere (=to dip, plunge). The Latin immergere is composed with im- and mergere (=to dip).
Transitive uses:
1. To cause to penetrate a liquid; to dip into a liquid matter.
Synonyms: to plunge, sink, immerge.
Approximate equivalents: sumergir, in Spanish; immerger, in French; immergere, in Italian.
Antonyms: to make emerge, float.
[…] as if they had been snow-balls immersed in water. Oliver Goldsmith (A History of the Earth)
One morning, as I sat very quietly, I observed a mole come out of an osier holt and run across a grass path, and take to the water: when it was about half across the river, I ran to the edge of the water, and the mole then made a perceptible attempt to dive, but merely immersed his nose in the water for half a minute, and rapidly gained the shore, and soon disappeared in a hole of the bank. Oliver Goldsmith (A History of the Earth)
The stone is immersed in water: it is therefore a condition of its reaching the ground, that its specific gravity exceed that of the surrounding fluid, or in other words that it surpass in weight an equal volume of water. John Stuart Mill (A System of Logic)
It may be said that very few human bodies will sink at all, even in fresh water, of their own accord. Almost any one, falling into a river, will be enabled to float, if he suffer the specific gravity of the water fairly to be adduced in comparison with his own — that is to say, if he suffer his whole person to be immersed, with as little exception as possible., with the head thrown fully back, and immersed; the mouth and nostrils alone remaining above the surface. Edgar Poe
She soaped and washed herself, finally squatting down to dunk her hair into the cold water. Soaping herself from top to bottom, she immersed herself into the water, scrubbing frantically. William Craig (The Gift)
She scrubbed her skin with sand and immersed herself in the water time after time, emerging clean and refreshed. Rosemary Laurey – J. C. Wilder (Deep Waters)
2. (Extensively) To cause to penetrate other fluid than water; to plunge into anything fluid.
The violence of the storm has been counterbalanced by its transitoriness. From being immersed in well-nigh solid media of cloud and hail shot with lightning, I find myself uncovered […] Thomas Hardy (A Changed Man and other Tales)
[…] a numher of busy little beings, immersed in the aerial fluid that every where surrounds them, and sedulously employed in procuring the means of subsistence. Oliver Goldsmith (A History of the Earth)
In an instant he sprang into a long gallery filled with steam, in a dense cloud of which he was immersed, and with a wizard air he silently beckoned us to follow. Benjamin Silliman (A Visit to Europe)
3. (With less propriety) to cause to be surrounded or covered by a granulated matter.
A plant, with its flowers, fades and dies immediately, if exposed to the air, without having its roots immersed in a humid soil, from which it may draw a sufficient quantity of moisture to supply that which exhales from its substance. Richard Joseph Sulivan (A View of Nature)
4. (Abusively) to cause to occupy a place or space.
He was immediately immersed in the crowd, and passed unobserved to his father's house. Samuel Johnson (The Adventurer and Idler)
5. (Metaphorically) to cause to be very busy in something as if absorbed by it.
Posdefinition: used chiefly as a passive and reflexive construction.
He opened some books as he said it, and was soon immersed in their interleaved and annotated passages . Charles Dickens (The Mystery of Edwin Drood)
Intransitive use:
To become immersed.
Other English words composed with, or derived from, stems of Latin mergere: merge (noun, verb), merged, merging, mergee, mergence, merger, commerge, submerge, submerging, submerged, submergement, submergence, submergible, submergibility, submerse, submersed, submersible, submersion, insubmersible, insubmergible, unmerged, emerge, emergence, emergency, emergent (noun, adj.), emergently, emerging (noun, adj.), demersal, demersed, demerger, demerge, demerged, demerging, immerge, immergence, immergent, immerger, immersal, immersed, immersement, immersible, immersion.