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The word for today is…
macerate (verb):
transitive verb
1: to cause to waste away by or as if by excessive fasting
2: to cause to become soft or separated into constituent elements by or as if by steeping in fluid; broadly : steep, soak
intransitive verb
: to soften and wear away especially as a result of being wetted or steeped
Source : Merriam -Webster
Etymology : Macerate is derived from the Latin verb macerare, which means "to soften" or "to steep," and, in Late Latin, can also mean "to mortify (the flesh)." Macerate first entered English in the mid-1500s to refer both to the wasting away of flesh especially by fasting and to softening or steeping. A few other manifestations sprouted thereafter from the word's figurative branch (e.g., the 18th-century novelist Laurence Sterne once wrote of "a city so macerated with expectation"); however, those extensions wilted in time. Today, the "steeping" and "soaking" senses of macerate saturate culinary articles (as in "macerating fruit in liquor") as well as other writings (scientific ones, for instance: "the food is macerated in the gizzard" or "the wood is macerated in the solution").
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