this post was submitted on 15 May 2025
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I don't know who that Tom Fitton guy is, but water absolutely wet. And he's a knob.
Wetness is a quality/concept gained from a surface having liquid adhere to it. The liquid itself can't be wet. It's like saying fire is burnt.
Wetness is being saturated with water. Water is saturated by water by a base definition; you cannot be more saturated with something than literally being it, a 100% saturation value. Water is wet. And now so is the object in contact with it.
It's less consistent to the example to say that fire is burnt and transferring that burnt, and more that fire is hot and a material affected by fire is also hot. Fire is hot. And now so is the object in contact with it. Being burnt is a secondary reaction as a result of the primary transference of the heat properties in an overabundance. Much like your skin shriveling is a result of being wet for prolonged periods. It's a secondary reaction to the primary transferance of properties.
Water transfers its wetness, fire transfers its heat. Water is wet.
Unfortunately this is a flawed analogy.
What you're equating water wets water is that heat heats heat, which could make semantic sense, but is a useless statement. The same argument, made for other properties, also becomes ridiculous: "light brightens light", "scratching scratches the scratching", "aging ages time", etc.
Definitions are always imperfect, but some are imperfecter than others.
Also, see definition of henges; Stonehenge is not a henge, despite being the source of the word.
Heat and water are not analogous because heat is pure energy. Water is a physical liquid. You're laser focused on a single definition of a word that's used in many other ways. Anyone trying to tell you that water isn't wet is engaged in semantic foolery.
You're putting your finger on the entire argument there: words are used differently in different contexts, and thus mean different things. The whole discussion is banal.
A volume can't be wet??? Man the random busted definitions you guys make up on the spot (instead of using a dictionary) just so you can win is really funny.
Burnt is something that was on fire but no longer can sustain the flame.
It is more analogous to "dry" (something that used to have water but no longer).
Saying "water is wet" is like saying "the fire is burning" which we say all the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetting
That is the actual definition tho
That's the wikipedia entry for wetting.
This is the definition of wet:
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/wet#English
Adjective
This might just be me, but I'll take a physical definition with sources over a dictionary example sentence. But the meaning of words is fluid, like how "literally" now also means "figuratively", so if you don't, that's okay. In scientific literature, where precise language matters, "wet", "wetness", "wettability" and "wetting" all refer to the process I've linked, however.
What you're calling "a physical definition with sources" would be more accurately as an online encyclopedia entry.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia
In other words, it's just you.
So then what are we arguing about? In common definition, as in the dictionary example from the source you i guess now regret linking, water is wet.
If you choose to define "wet" differently or in specific scientific contexts maybe water isn't wet.
Alright, sure. L. D. Landau, E. M. Lishitz: Course on Theoretical Physics 5: Statistical Physics, English translation 1951, p. 467ff, subchapter Wetting.
This is established science. I just thought Wikipedia might be an easier introduction.
I don't know what point you're trying to make.
What? I legit don't understand what you're trying to say. You linked a user-curated dictionary and pretended that's the be-all, end-all of definitions. I can do that as well, even if PhilosophyTube is going to beat my ass for it:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/wet
But I was talking about the scientific background of the term. This is not some hyper-specific term, but how it's used in almost* all of science.
*(The other somewhat common use is as a synonym of "humid", often used in climate amd atmospheric science. Which is irrelevant in the discussion "is water wet")
I'm lost as to why you are citing this.
Nobody throughout this thread is using specific jargon from the field of statistical physics.
We're simply discussing what the word "wet" means. I am not interested in your niche scientific subchapter on "wetting" in a 1951 theoretical physics textbook.
What that wikipedia article is explaining is that if you are interested in the meaning of a word and not just factual information about it, an encyclopedia (wikipedia) entry is the wrong place to look because "unlike a dictionary", it's not focused on the meaning of words.
Uh, you linked it. Thats your source. I just used it because you linked it as a source you trust?
You accidentally linked "wetting", but if you look at link you sent and go to the top of the page where it says
And then click that and you'll see
It's literally just 2 clicks inside the source you linked as the end-all, be-all lmao.
You're right, I wouldn't have just linked a dictionary entry as a thought ending cliche until you tried to and I showed you what your own source was saying about it.
I have no actual stake in this discussion beyond the fun of arguing. I could continue, for example by pointing out that in the article about "Encyclopedia" you linked it says
But I get the feeling you're taking this too seriously, and I'm not enjoying this anymore. So let's end it here, I hope you have a good day!
There's an argument that a single molecule of water on its own would not be wet, but essentially all water is touched by other water, so even by the needlessly contrarian definition, water is wet.
There’s an argument that wetness is a sensation that occurs when water comes into contact with a solid surface. Therefore, while water can make other things wet, it is not considered wet on its own.
I'd argue there exist extremely viscous liquids which would be considered wet when in contact with water.
It seems arbitrary to exclude liquids from being wet.
And yet I'm struggling to think of one....
This is my personal argument tbh. Water transfers wetness but it can transfer it's wetness to other water.
Unless solid ice is "wet" you might need to reconsider the "touching molecules of water" angle.
When I said "water," I meant it in the common, liquid sense, not the scientific designation for all dihydrogen monoxide regardless of state.
The reason I was being pedantic is because you specifically said a single water molecule.
Water molecules don't have a state in and of themselves. State is determined by the distance between molecules, whether they form macro crystal structures (ice).
Liquid/solid/gas is a macro state that many many water molecules might be in.
A single water molecule is a micro state, "solid" or "liquid" is meaningless in a context where we look at a single molecule and the things it immediately bonds with.
We aren't in the realm of liquid or solid, we're in the realm of covalent and hydrogen bonds.
Only when thousands of molecules get together can we start talking about "liquid" water.
You don't get to just say that it's not up for debate lmao every definition is up for debate
Water is wet, and the only definitions that explicitly exclude the possibility that it is are based entirely on the idea that water isn't wet, rather than the actual ways people use the word "wet"