seep

Formsseeps, seeping, seeped

Pluralseeps

1. 1
   verbintransitive

   To ooze or pass slowly through pores or small openings, in very small amounts.

   Groundwater can seep through porous rock over many years.

   Oil seeped slowly from the damaged pipe.

   Similarooze, leak, trickle, percolate, drip

   Oppositegush

   Note

   The literal sense, and the one the rest grow from: seep is a variant of sipe, reaching back through Old English sipian to a root meaning "to pour out, drip, trickle". Its cousins include Middle Dutch sīpen, "to drip". The slowness is built into the verb. It pairs naturally with through and in, and the liquid, not the roof or wall, is its subject.

2. 2
   verbfigurativelyintransitive

   To work its way gradually into something, or to spread slowly through it.

   Distrust seeped into the negotiations as the talks dragged on.

   Cynicism can seep into a workplace over time.

   Similarcreep, filter, trickle, spread

   Note

   Feelings and attitudes are the usual travelers here: fear, woe, distrust. The verb keeps its liquid prepositions, so fear seeps into a community and woe seeps through a heart. That borrowed slowness is the point. It suits a change nobody notices until it has soaked all the way in, rather than one that arrives at a stroke.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A small spring, pool, or spot where liquid from underground (such as water, oil, or tar) has oozed to the surface.

   Geologists traced the oil to a natural seep along the coastline.

   Several seeps dotted the marsh, each leaking dark, mineral-rich water.

   Similarspring

   Note

   The noun names three related things, and this one is the place itself: a spot where water, oil or tar comes up out of the ground. The liquid that escapes is the substance, and the act of seeping away is the process. A natural seep along a coastline is a location you could walk up to and stand beside.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   Moisture, liquid, or gas that has slowly oozed out; seepage.

   A faint gas seep escaped from the cracked valve.

   Engineers collected the seeps to test for contamination.

   Similarleak, leakage, discharge

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   Of a crack or opening, to allow a liquid to pass slowly through; to leak it.

   The cracked seal seeped brine into the cargo hold.

   Worn pipes can seep water through their joints for years.

   Similarleak, ooze, drip, exude

   Note

   The grammar turns around: the crack or seal is the subject and the liquid is the object, so a crack seeps water or coolant. It is the transitive partner of the ooze-through sense, where the water itself seeps through the crack. Leak works in both patterns. Seep adds that the loss is slow, a trickle rather than a gush.

6. 6
   verbfigurativelyintransitive

   Of a feeling or quality, to ebb away gradually until little or none is left.

   Public support for the plan slowly seeped away.

   Hope can seep away when help never arrives.

   Similarebb, drain, dwindle, fade, wane

   Oppositegrow, swell

   Note

   Here the movement runs outward, and away is nearly always attached: resistance, support or hope seeps away rather than simply seeping. Where the "spreading" meaning describes something arriving by degrees, this one describes something lost by degrees, like water draining out of soil until none is left.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   The slow leaking or draining away of a liquid.

   Engineers monitored the steady seep of fluid from the cracked tank.

   A slow seep through the rock face eroded the trail over decades.

   Similartrickle, leak, drip, leakage

   Oppositegush

8. 8
   nouncountable

   An opening on the sea floor from which fluid or gas escapes.

   The submersible explored a methane seep at three thousand meters.

   Cold seeps support clams and tube worms that feed on chemicals.

   Note

   The deep-sea counterpart of the spring or pool sense. Caspar Henderson's The Book of Barely Imagined Beings (2012) describes the Yeti crab, whose hairs carry bacteria that might neutralize the gases a vent emits or feed the crab directly. In writing about such places, seep and vent sit side by side as names for the same kind of opening.

9. 9
   verbdialectalScotlandintransitive

   To soak; to make or become thoroughly wet.

   Soak the grains and let them seep until softened.

   The bandage seeped in saline before it was applied.

   Similarsoak, steep

   Note

   A Scots use in which seep means to drench. James Lemon's Lays of St. Mungo (1844) has people "seepit to the skin" by the wet, with the Scots past participle in -it. W. Beatty's The Secretar (1897) turns it inward, to a mind seeped in "the rain of adversity". Outside Scottish writing, readers will expect soak instead.

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