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leak

 - 4 dictionary results

leak

[leek]
–noun
1. an unintended hole, crack, or the like, through which liquid, gas, light, etc., enters or escapes: a leak in the roof.
2. an act or instance of leaking.
3. any means of unintended entrance or escape.
4. Electricity. the loss of current from a conductor, usually resulting from poor insulation.
5. a disclosure of secret, esp. official, information, as to the news media, by an unnamed source.
–verb (used without object)
6. to let a liquid, gas, light, etc., enter or escape, as through an unintended hole or crack: The boat leaks.
7. to pass in or out in this manner, as liquid, gas, or light: gas leaking from a pipe.
8. to become known unintentionally (usually fol. by out): The news leaked out.
9. to disclose secret, esp. official, information anonymously, as to the news media: The official revealed that he had leaked to the press in the hope of saving his own reputation.
–verb (used with object)
10. to let (liquid, gas, light, etc.) enter or escape: This camera leaks light.
11. to allow to become known, as information given out covertly: to leak the news of the ambassador's visit.
12. take a leak, Slang: Vulgar. to urinate.

Origin:
1375–1425; 1955–60 for def. 11; late ME leken < ON leka to drip, leak; akin to D lek, obs. G lech leaky. See leach 1


leaker, noun
leakless, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To leak
leak   (lēk)   
v.   leaked, leak·ing, leaks

v.   intr.
  1. To permit the escape, entry, or passage of something through a breach or flaw: rusted pipes that were beginning to leak; a boat leaking at the seams.

  2. To escape or pass through a breach or flaw: helium leaking slowly from the balloon.

  3. Informal To become publicly known through a breach of secrecy: The news has leaked.

v.   tr.
  1. To permit (a substance) to escape or pass through a breach or flaw: a damaged reactor leaking radioactivity into the atmosphere.

  2. Informal To disclose without authorization or official sanction: leaked classified information to a reporter.

n.  
  1. A crack or flaw that permits something to escape from or enter a container or conduit: fixed the leak in the roof.

    1. The act or instance of leaking.

    2. An amount leaked: equipment used in cleaning up oil leaks.

    3. Loss of electric current as a result of faulty insulation.

    4. The path or place at which this loss takes place.

  2. Informal An unauthorized or a deliberate disclosure of confidential information: "Sometimes we can't respond to stories based on leaks" (Ronald Reagan).

    1. Loss of electric current as a result of faulty insulation.

    2. The path or place at which this loss takes place.


[Middle English leken, probably from Middle Dutch lēken.]
leak'er n.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

leak  (v.)
"to let water in or out" [Johnson], 1420, from M.Du. leken "to drip, to leak," or from O.N. leka, cognate of O.E. leccan "to moisten" (which did not survive into M.E.), all from P.Gmc. *lek- "deficiency" (cf. O.H.G. lecchen "to become dry," Ger. lechzen "to be parched with thirst"). The noun is from 1487. The figurative meaning "come to be known in spite of efforts at concealment" dates from at least 1832; transitive sense first recorded 1859; the noun in this sense dates from 1950. Noun sense of "act of urination" is from 1934 (first attested in "Tropic of Cancer"); but the verb meaning "to piss" is from 1596.
"Why, you will allow vs ne're a Iourden, and then we leake in your Chimney." ["I Hen. IV," II.i.22]
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Computing Dictionary

leak programming
With a qualifier, one of a class of resource-management bugs that occur when resources are not freed properly after operations on them are finished, so they effectively disappear (leak out). This leads to eventual exhaustion as new allocation requests come in.
One might refer to, say, a "window handle leak" in a window system.
See memory leak, fd leak.
[The Jargon File]
(1995-04-18)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
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