leak

leak (liːk)
—n
1.	a.  a crack, hole, etc, that allows the accidental escape or entrance of fluid, light, etc
	b.  such escaping or entering fluid, light, etc
2.	spring a leak to develop a leak
3.	something resembling this in effect: a leak in the defence system
4.	the loss of current from an electrical conductor because of faulty insulation, etc
5.	a disclosure, often intentional, of secret information
6.	the act or an instance of leaking
7.	See urinate a slang word for urination
—vb (when intr, often foll by out)
8.	to enter or escape or allow to enter or escape through a crack, hole, etc
9.	to disclose (secret information), often intentionally, or (of secret information) to be disclosed
10.	(intr) a slang word for urinate
[C15: from Scandinavian; compare Old Norse leka to drip]
'leaker
—n

leak
EXPAND

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]

COLLAPSE

leak definition

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.
[Jargon File]
(1995-04-18)