penetrate

English
Verb

penetrate (third-person singular simple present penetrates, present participle penetrating, simple past and past participle penetrated)

1. Manage to enter into.

¶ He takes the prepared charcoal used by artists, brings it to a white heat, and suddenly plunges it in a bath of mercury, of which the globules instantly penetrate the pores of charcoal, and may be said to metallize it. [1879, Th Du Moncel, The Telephone, the Microphone and the Phonograph, Harper, page 166]

¶ Man with all his noble qualities...with his godlike intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system...still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin. [Charles Darwin, 1809-1882]

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Derived terms

penetration
penetrable