sponging

v. clean with a sponge; wipe with a sponge; absorb liquid; exploit, live at the expense of others

Begging is the practice whereby a person obtains money, food, shelter or other things from people they encounter by request. It is also referred to as sponging, spanging (short for "spare-changing") or (in American English) panhandling.In larger cities, it is common to see beggars asking for money, food, or other items. Typically, beggars often beg for spare change equipped with coffee cups, mugs, small boxes, hats, or other items into which monies can be placed and sometimes display signs with messages such as "Help me. I'm homeless."
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Noun
1. a porous mass of interlacing fibers the forms the internal skeleton of various marine animals and usable to absorb water or any porous rubber or cellulose product similarly used
(hypernym) absorbent material, absorbent
2. someone able to acquire new knowledge and skills rapidly and easily; "she soaks up foreign languages like a sponge"
(synonym) quick study
(hypernym) learner, scholar, assimilator
3. a follower who hangs around a host (without benefit to the host) in hope of gain or advantage
(synonym) leech, parasite, sponger
(hypernym) follower
(derivation) mooch, bum, cadge, grub
4. primitive multicellular marine animal whose porous body is supported by a fibrous skeletal framework; usually occurs in sessile colonies
(synonym) poriferan, parazoan
(hypernym) invertebrate
(hyponym) glass sponge
(member-holonym) Porifera, phylum Porifera
Verb
1. wipe with a sponge, so as to clean or moisten
(hypernym) wipe, pass over
2. ask for and get free; be a parasite
(synonym) mooch, bum, cadge, grub
(hypernym) obtain
(hyponym) freeload
(derivation) leech, parasite, sponger
3. erase with a sponge; as of words on a blackboard
(hypernym) erase, rub out, score out, efface, wipe off
4. soak up with a sponge
(hypernym) wipe up, mop up, mop
5. gather sponges, in the ocean
(hypernym) gather, garner, collect, pull together
(derivation) poriferan, parazoan

a. & n. from Sponge, v.
  

(p. pr. & vb. n.)
of Sponge
  

A special case of a Unix filter that reads its entire input before writing any output; the canonical example is a sort utility. Unlike most filters, a sponge can conveniently overwrite the input file with the output data stream. If a file system has file versioning (as ITS did and VMS does now) the sponge/filter distinction loses its usefulness, because directing filter output would just write a new version.
See also slurp.
[Jargon File]
(1995-01-18)