Other forms: imbibed, imbibing, imbibes
To imbibe is to drink, or to take in ideas. Imbibe freely, imbibed the atmosphere, imbibe new ideas.
It is jocular about drinking — saying somebody has imbibed is a mock-formal way of saying they have had a few — and straight about ideas, where imbibing means absorbing without deliberate study. Note that the Latin is in plus bibere, to drink, the same root as beverage and imbibed.
1verbdrinkTo drink.
“Guests who had imbibed too freely at the party were sent home in taxis.”
2verbimbibeTo take in ideas.
“As a child, she imbibed her parents' love of music and books.”
imbibe is a taking in.
Latin imbibere is in plus bibere, to drink. Beverage, bib and potable come from related drinking.
Proto-Indo-European
*peh₃-
Proto-Italic
*pibō
Latin
imbibō
Middle English
imbiben
English, today
imbibe
Built from
From Middle English imbiben, from Latin imbibō, from im- + bibō (“to drink”) (whence also beverage), from Proto-Italic pibō, from Proto-Indo-European peh₃-, whence also potable, potion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA