saturare

Saturare is a term used in Italian and Romanian to denote the process of filling something to capacity or bringing it to the point of maximum occupancy. In Italian, saturare is a transitive verb meaning to saturate; the corresponding noun is saturazione. In Romanian, the standard noun for the state of saturation is saturație, while the verb is a satura or se satura.

The word derives from Latin saturare, related to saturus meaning sated, and it has been adopted across scientific and practical domains to describe reaching a limit of solubility, capacity, or response. In chemistry, a saturated solution contains as much dissolved solute as possible at a given temperature. In physics and electrical engineering, saturation refers to a regime where increasing input no longer produces a proportional increase in output, as in magnetic cores or amplifiers limited by power rails.

In biology and medicine, oxygen saturation (often abbreviated as SpO2) indicates the percentage of hemoglobin bound to oxygen, while saturation concepts appear in pharmacology and physiology to describe binding limits and tissue oxygenation. In color science and imaging, color saturation measures the vividness or intensity of a color. In economics and marketing, market saturation describes a point at which a product category has widespread penetration with limited growth prospects.

Related terms include saturate, saturation, saturation point and saturație.