Wet means covered with or soaked in water or another liquid. When you come in from the rain, your hair and clothes are wet. When you wash your hands, they're wet until you dry them with a towel. A sponge pulled from a bucket of water is wet and dripping.

Things can be slightly wet, like damp grass after morning dew, or completely soaked through. A wet dog shaking water everywhere after a bath is very wet indeed. Paint stays wet for a while after you apply it to a wall, which is why signs warn “Wet Paint” so you don't accidentally touch it and smudge your work.

The word also describes rainy weather. A wet day means rain is falling or has just fallen. Seattle has a reputation as a wet city because it rains there frequently.

As a verb, wet means to make something wet. You might wet a cloth to wipe a table, or wet your toothbrush before adding toothpaste.

Sometimes people use wet to mean inexperienced or ineffective, though this usage is less common today. The old phrase “wet behind the ears” compares someone new and inexperienced to a just-born animal still damp from birth.