Sodden means so wet it is heavy with water. Sodden ground, sodden clothes, sodden with rain.
The weight is the point — a wet coat drips, a sodden one hangs. It is the old past participle of seethe, so it once meant boiled, and the sense drifted from boiled through soaked to soaked and heavy. Note sodden as a description of somebody drunk.
1adjectivesoddenSo wet it is heavy with water.
“We came back from the walk with sodden boots and freezing feet.”
sodden is a quality of wetness.
The old past participle of seethe, to boil, from Old English soden. The sense moved from boiled to soaked.
Proto-Germanic
*sudanaz
Old English
soden
Middle English
sodden
English, today
sodden
From Middle English sodden, soden, from Old English soden, ġesoden, from Proto-Germanic sudanaz, past participle of Proto-Germanic seuþaną (“to seethe; boil”). Cognate with West Frisian sean, Dutch gezoden (“seethed, boiled”) (related to Dutch zode (“swampy land”)), Low German saden, söddt, German gesotten, Swedish sjuden, Icelandic soðinn. More at seethe.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA