leak
/liːk/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.09 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A divulgation, or disclosure, of information previously held secret.
noun
The person through whom such divulgation, or disclosure, occurs.
noun
A loss of electricity through imperfect insulation, or the point where it occurs.
noun
The gradual loss of a system resource caused by failure to deallocate previously reserved portions.
Example Sentences
Etymology
From Middle English leken (“to let water in or out”), from Old English *lecan (“to leak”), Middle Dutch leken (“to leak, drip”) or Old Norse leka (“to leak, drip”); all from Proto-Germanic *lekaną (“to leak, drain”), from Proto-Indo-European *leg- (“to leak”). Cognate with Dutch lekken (“to leak”), German lechen, lecken (“to leak”), Danish lække (“to leak”), Swedish läcka (“to leak”), Norwegian Bokmål lekke (“to leak”), Faroese, Icelandic, and Norwegian Nynorsk leka (“to leak”). Related also to Old English leċċan (“to water, wet”), Albanian lag, lak (“to damp, make wet”). See also leach, lake. (divulgation, disclosure of information): Compare typologically Bulgarian изтичане (iztičane), Polish przeciek, Russian уте́чка (utéčka) (akin to течь impf or f (tečʹ)).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Usage
- Slang
- Transitive verb
- Intransitive verb
- American usage
- Obsolete
Inflected Forms
leaks (plural)
leaks (present, singular)
leaking (participle, present)
leaked (participle, past)
leaked (past)
more leak (comparative)
most leak (superlative)