Leak

How to spell leak

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce leak

What does leak mean?

1. verbTo let liquid or gas escape accidentally through a hole or crack.
2. nounA hole or crack through which liquid or gas escapes, or the escape itself.
3. nounA deliberate or accidental disclosure of confidential information.

Leak in a sentence

• verb

  The old radiator began to leak water onto the carpet.

• noun

  The plumber traced the leak to a cracked seal under the sink.

• noun

  The journalist relied on a leak from inside the ministry.

• verb

  If the pipe joints are loose, they will leak under pressure.

• noun

  A gas leak forced the whole building to evacuate.

• noun

  The company launched an inquiry into the data leak.

Where does leak come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

The word comes from the Old Norse verb leka, meaning 'to drip' or 'to let water through', which is closely related to the Middle Dutch leken with the same sense. It entered English in the medieval period, reinforced by these Norse and Low German neighbours whose seafaring vocabulary dealt constantly with water seeping into ships. The earliest English uses described exactly that: water finding its way into or out of a vessel through a flaw. Over the centuries the sense broadened from boats and barrels to any unintended escape of liquid or gas, and by the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it had taken on the figurative meaning of secret information escaping to the public. A useful spelling note is that 'leak' shares its 'ea' pattern with words like 'beak' and 'speak', while its sound-alike vegetable 'leek' keeps a double 'ee'; the two were always distinct words, the vegetable descending instead from Old English leac.

How the word is built

• leak (from Old Norse leka: to drip, to leak)