if the argument is that definition of wet is that something is covered by water or another liquid

This youtube video is a counterexample to that definition and the material is what we call superhydrophobic. When it is being splashed, the material is being covered by water, but remain dry throughout, thus never really wet.

The true definition of “wetting” is the extent to which the liquid covers, and especially is being absorbed by/glued into the substrate’s surface. When clothes are wet; it is rather that there are loads of water molecules absorbed into the clothing, not the clothing itself being covered by water.

Not that I want to start a war or anything, but I always get annoyed when people (like the Oxford dictionary) constantly uses this lazy definition of “covered by liquid” and then you get people who always get the wrong idea on the concept of wetting… Though that might just be my science brain being mad about the small irrelevant details.

In short: the question “is water wet?” is actually much more complicated than you’d think as you would need to factor in dryness (which water itself can never be in a practical way), whether water can really be absorbed by itself, whether a liquid is valid as a surface (because as much as water could in theory be wet, you can’t really wet water1 with water2 when water1 isn’t covering water2, but instead getting sucked into it and in constant motion inside water 2 unlike a solid -> is that wetting?), etc.