moist and damp

Share on Facebook

milky

#390373 Tue, 10 Jul 07 03:54 PM

Do moist and damp have the same meaning, for you?

milky

Joined on Thu, Jan 15 2004

Senior Member (3,149)

Hume said that if we had perfect or complete descriptive knowledge of reality, we could not, by reasoning, derive a single valid "ought".

nona the brit

#390420 Tue, 10 Jul 07 05:02 PM

No. Damp sounds 'wetter' than moist and often has a connotation of unpleasantness.

The uses are different too and they are not always interchangeable.

A house suffers from damp, not moist.

A nice cake is moist, not damp.

nona the brit

Joined on Wed, Sep 22 2004

England

Veteran Member (11,209)

The name says it all.

milky

#390590 Wed, 11 Jul 07 01:56 AM

Nona The Brit wrote:

No. Damp sounds 'wetter' than moist and often has a connotation of unpleasantness.

The uses are different too and they are not always interchangeable.

A house suffers from damp, not moist.

A nice cake is moist, not damp.

I think that's true.

"Moist" generally seems to have a positive connotation - except when collocated with external body parts.

milky

#390591 Wed, 11 Jul 07 02:04 AM

Maybe they are sometimes closer in meaning when verbs:

Roll out a pastry lid, place it over the filling and damp/en the outer rim.

Roll out a pastry lid, place it over the filling and moisten the outer rim.

But not here:

During the quake, the columns failed to damp the lateral motion of the building,

*During the quake, the columns failed to moisten the lateral motion of the building,

milky

Verbs

milky

#390592 Wed, 11 Jul 07 02:16 AM

In many cases, "damp" has negative connotation, in others neutral connotation. In certain cases the words are not synonymous at all and in others they are synonyms.

The dew moistened/dampened the fields.

Damp/dampen/moisten the edges of the pastry and seal.

The building was damp/moist.

A cold damp/moist hand brushed his neck.

milky

Negatives, Synonyms