Soak

[Perry Lassiter]

Reading letters of CS Lewis, British academic and Christian thinker. He love to hike with friends over the English country side for several days at a time. At some points in his walk he invariably stopped to "soak." He also did frequent bathing, by which he meant swimming. We still have bathing suits, though swim trunks and bikinis are replacing them. While the US used to use "bathing" in this sense - we still have bath houses - I don't remember anyone saying or writing soak of anything but water. We may soak in a tub, or soak picked fruit to get the dirt off. But we never "soak" in the sun, which would certainly be preferable to the slang "laying out." We do say sun-bathe.

[Perry Lassiter]

I was wrong. I kept reading, and Lewis was in the home guard with a midnight watch where a one point they would stop and soak. I don't get it.

[Slava]

We do have the idea of things "soaking" in, as in getting the point. Soaked can also be a slang term for three sheets to the wind. Could they have been indulging at the local pub?

Another slang usage is to soak someone, as in to overcharge for services rendered.

[Perry Lassiter]

Any of you Britishers familiar with the use of the word as Lewis used it in my original post?

[call_copse]

I'd definitely say all the uses mentioned so far would be familiar. I don't think a vigorous swim would be a soak, but a relaxed dip in warm waters could be. An old soak would be a elderly dipsomaniac. We would definitely soak in the sun. Metaphorically you could soak up knowledge.

[Stargzer]

Being as C. S. Lewis was born in 1898, I'd go with pub-crawling, as someone in their 40s would have been wont to do before the pubs closed. Either that, or they just stopped to soak up the quiet of the night.

3. To drink intemperately or gluttonously. [Slang]

[Slava]

It looks like stargzer may have solved this one.

Going back to the original post, don't we still say "lie in the sun and soak up some rays"? Or more simply, "Go out and soak up some sun".