leak

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-, *leǵ- (“to leak”).

Cognate with Dutch lekken (“to leak”), German lechen, lecken (“to leak”), Danish lække (“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.

• enPR: lēk, IPA^(key): /liːk/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -iːk
• Homophone: leek

leak (plural leaks)

1. A crack, crevice, fissure, or hole which admits water or other fluid, or lets it escape.

   a leak in a roof

   a leak in a boat

   a leak in a gas pipe

2. The entrance or escape of a fluid through a crack, fissure, or other aperture.

   The leak gained on the ship's pumps.

   The babies' diapers had big leaks.

3. A divulgation, or disclosure, of information previously held secret.

   The leaks by Chelsea Manning showed the secrets of the US military.

4. The person through whom such divulgation, or disclosure, occurs.

   The press must have learned about the plan through a leak.

5. A loss of electricity through imperfect insulation, or the point where it occurs.
6. (computing) The gradual loss of a system resource caused by failure to deallocate previously reserved portions.

   resource leak

   memory leak

7. (mildly vulgar, slang, especially with the verb "take") An act of urination.

   I have to take a leak.

• (act of urination): dump

leak (third-person singular simple present leaks, present participle leaking, simple past and past participle leaked)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To allow fluid or gas to pass through an opening that should be sealed.

   The wells are believed to have been leaking oil for decades, long after the operating company ceased to exist.

   The faucet has been leaking since last month.

2. (intransitive) (of a fluid or gas) To pass through an opening that should be sealed.

   No one realized that propane gas was leaking from a rusty tank in the concession area, slowly filling the unventilated room.

3. (transitive, intransitive) To disclose secret information surreptitiously or anonymously.

   Someone must have leaked it to our competitors that the new product will be out soon.

   • 1987, “Man Overboard”, in Yes, Prime Minister, spoken by Bernard Wooley (Derek Fowlds):

     That's another of those irregular verbs, isn't it? I give confidential press briefings; you leak; he's being charged under section 2(A) of the Official Secrets Act.

4. (intransitive, figurative, by extension) To pass through when it would normally or preferably be blocked.
   • 1989, Kenneth N. Luongo, W. Thomas Wander, The Search for Security in Space, page 149:

     A target that is not detected would not be intercepted and thus would leak through the single defensive layer.

5. (transitive, figurative, by extension) To allow anything through that would normally or preferably be blocked.
   • 2021 February 6, Graham Bean, “Scotland beat England at Twickenham for the first time in 38 years”, in The Scotsman‎:

     England were leaking penalties as Scotland played with pace and variety. Russell was starting to find his range and when he threaded through a grubber to Sean Maitland the winger did well to gather and keep the ball in play. Unfortunately, his pass inside just eluded Russell.

6. (slang, sometimes euphemistic) To urinate.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:urinate

   I had to leak in the woods since there were no toilets around.

   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:

     Why, you will allow vs ne're a Iourden, and then we leake in your Chimney: and your Chamber-lye breeds Fleas like a Loach.

   • 1957, Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Viking Press, →OCLC:

     Occasionally bums passed, Mexican mothers passed with children, and the prowl car came by and the cop got out to leak, but most of the time we were alone and mixing up our souls ever more and ever more till it would be terribly hard to say good-by.

   • 1965, Sam Selvon, The Housing Lark, Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, published 1990, page 125:

     Go and find a tree. I just leak against a^[sic] oak over there.

7. (slang, US) To bleed.

   He shanked him, now he's leaking.

leak (comparative more leak, superlative most leak)

1. (obsolete) Leaky.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Yet is the bottle leake, and bag so torne, / That all which I put in fals out anon […].

• Jonathon Green (2024) “leak v.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang

• Akel, Alek, Kale, Lake, ka le, kale, lake

• IPA^(key): /liːk/

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leak

1. singular imperative of leaken
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of leaken