leak

Meanings

Noun

• A crack, crevice, fissure, or hole which admits water or other fluid, or lets it escape.
• The entrance or escape of a fluid through a crack, fissure, or other aperture.
• A divulgation, or disclosure, of information previously held secret.
• The person through whom such divulgation, or disclosure, occurs.
• A loss of electricity through imperfect insulation, or the point where it occurs.
• The gradual loss of a system resource caused by failure to deallocate previously reserved portions.
• An act of urination.

Verb

• To allow fluid or gas to pass through an opening that should be sealed.
• (of a fluid or gas) To pass through an opening that should be sealed.
• To disclose secret information surreptitiously or anonymously.
• To pass through when it would normally or preferably be blocked.
• To allow anything through that would normally or preferably be blocked.

Adjective

• Leaky.

Origin

• 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 *lekaną ("to leak, drain"), from Proto-Indo-European *leg-, *leǵ-.
• Cognate with Dutch lekken ("to leak"), German lechen, lecken, Swedish läcka ("to leak"), Icelandic leka ("to leak"). Related also to Old English leċċan ("to water, wet"), Albanian lag, lak. See also leach, lake.