Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To permit the escape, entry, or passage of something through a breach or flaw.
  • intransitive verb To escape or pass through a breach or flaw.
  • intransitive verb To become publicly known through a breach of secrecy.
  • intransitive verb To permit (a substance) to escape or pass through a breach or flaw.
  • intransitive verb To disclose without authorization or official sanction.
  • noun A crack or flaw that permits something to escape from or enter a container or conduit.
  • noun The act or instance of leaking.
  • noun An amount leaked.
  • noun An unauthorized or a deliberate disclosure of confidential information.
  • noun Loss of electric current as a result of faulty insulation.
  • noun The path or place at which this loss takes place.
  • idiom (take a leak) To urinate.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Leaky.
  • To let water or other fluid, or light, etc., out of, into, or through something, by an accidental or unintentional aperture, or through permeable material: as, the eask leaks; the ship is leaking; the roof leaks.
  • To ooze or pass, as water or other fluid, or anything that can flow, as grain, through an aperture.
  • To void water or urine.
  • To let out or in (especially some fluid) by an accidental aperture: as, the pipe leaks gas; the roof leaks rain; the camera leaks light.
  • To make leaky.
  • noun An aperture by which anything that can flow, especially water or other fluid, passes out of, into, or through anything intended to contain, exclude, or restrain it; a crack, crevice, fissure, or hole that permits the passage of anything intended to be shut in or out: as, a leak in a cask, ship, dam, or dike; to stop or plug a leak.
  • noun The oozing or passing of a fluid, etc., into, out of, or through anything by an accidental or unintentional aperture or through a permeable medium; leakage.
  • noun A gutter.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective obsolete Leaky.
  • intransitive verb To let water or other fluid in or out through a hole, crevice, etc.
  • intransitive verb To enter or escape, as a fluid, through a hole, crevice, etc.; to pass gradually into, or out of, something; -- usually with in or out.
  • intransitive verb to be divulged gradually or clandestinely; to become public; as, .
  • noun A crack, crevice, fissure, or hole which admits water or other fluid, or lets it escape
  • noun The entrance or escape of a fluid through a crack, fissure, or other aperture.
  • noun (Elec.) A loss of electricity through imperfect insulation; also, the point at which such loss occurs.
  • noun vulgar an act of urinating; -- used mostly in the phrase take a leak, i. e. to urinate.
  • noun The disclosure of information that is expected to be kept confidential.
  • noun to open or crack so as to let in water; to begin to let in water.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A crack, crevice, fissure, or hole which admits water or other fluid, or lets it escape.
  • noun The entrance or escape of a fluid through a crack, fissure, or other aperture.
  • noun A divulgation, or disclosure, of information held secret util then.
  • noun The person through whom such divulgation, or disclosure, occurred.
  • noun computing The gradual loss of a system resource caused by failure to deallocate previously reserved portions.
  • noun A draining of one's urine (especially of a man)
  • verb To allow fluid to escape or enter something that should be sealed.
  • verb To reveal secret information.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb tell anonymously
  • noun soft watery rot in fruits and vegetables caused by fungi
  • verb enter or escape as through a hole or crack or fissure
  • verb have an opening that allows light or substances to enter or go out
  • noun unauthorized (especially deliberate) disclosure of confidential information
  • verb be leaked
  • noun an accidental hole that allows something (fluid or light etc.) to enter or escape
  • noun a euphemism for urination
  • noun the discharge of a fluid from some container

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English leken, probably from Middle Dutch lēken.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English leken ("to let water in or out"), from Middle Dutch leken ("to leak, drip") or Old Norse leka ("to leak, drip"); both from Proto-Germanic *lekanan (“to leak, drain”), from Proto-Indo-European *leg-, *leǵ- (“to leak”). Cognate with Dutch lekken ("to leak"), German lechen, lecken ("to leak"), Swedish läcka ("to leak"), Icelandic leka ("to leak"). Related also to Old English leċċan ("to water, wet"), Albanian lag, lak ("I damp, make wet"). See also leach, lake.

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Examples

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  • ... and then they put their arms around each other's necks, and hung their chins over each other's shoulders; and then for three minutes, or maybe four, I never see two men leak the way they done. HF 25

    December 7, 2006

  • "One leak will sink a ship, and one sin will destroy a sinner."

    John Bunyan (1628-1688), Pilgrim's Progress

    September 20, 2009

  • underwater oil leak, Wikileak

    August 4, 2010