seep

Variant of sipe, from Middle English *sipen, from Old English sipian, from Proto-Germanic *sipōną, derivative of *sīpaną, from Proto-Indo-European *seyb-, *sib- (“to pour out, drip, trickle”).

See also Middle Dutch sīpen (“to drip”), German Low German siepern (“to seep”), archaic German seifen (“to trickle blood”); also Latin sēbum (“suet, tallow”), Ancient Greek εἴβω (eíbō, “to drop, drip”)). See soap.

• enPR: sēp, IPA^(key): /siːp/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -iːp

seep (third-person singular simple present seeps, present participle seeping, simple past and past participle seeped)

1. (intransitive) To ooze or pass slowly through pores or other small openings, and in overly small quantities; said of liquids, etc.

   Water has seeped through the roof.

   The water steadily seeped in through the thirl.

2. (intransitive, figurative) To enter or penetrate slowly; to spread or diffuse.

   Woe seeped through her heart thinking of what had befallen their ethnic group.

   Fear began to seep into the local community over the contamination of their fishpond.

3. (intransitive, figurative) To diminish or wane away slowly.

   The resistance movement against the invaders had slowly seeped away.

4. (transitive) (of a crack etc.) To allow a liquid to pass through, to leak.

   The crack is seeping water.

   • 2015, Crack repair service‎, archived from the original on 23 February 2020:

     If the crack is seeping water, the foam totally stops the leakage.

   • 2009 April 16, Crownvic forums‎:

     Just when I thought I was done checking it over, I smelled coolant....remove the engine cover and bam! 1 inch crack is seeping coolant!

• leak

seep (plural seeps)

1. A small spring, pool, or other spot where liquid from the ground (e.g. water, petroleum or tar) has oozed to the surface; a place of seeping.
2. Moisture, liquid, gas, etc. that seeps out; a seepage.
3. The seeping away of a liquid, etc.
4. A seafloor vent.
   • 2012, Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, page 356:

     Another idea was that filamentous bacteria covering the hairs [of the Yeti crab] would either neutralize gases emitted from the vent or serve the crab directly as a food source. And this last idea received support when a second species of Yeti crab was discovered on cold seeps on the deep-sea floor near Costa Rica.

• seep mudalia

• sip
• siphon

• Sepe, eeps, pees

From Dutch zeep.

• IPA^(key): /sɪəp/

• Audio

  (file)

seep (plural sepe)

1. soap

• → Swazi: insipho
• → Xhosa: isepha
• → Zulu: insipho

Borrowed from Middle Low German sêpe.

seep (genitive seebi, partitive seepi)

1. soap

• (Revived) IPA^(key): /siːp/

seep

1. river