LEAKY (leakier, leakiest)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected forms: leakier    , leakiest   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does leaky mean? 

• LEAKY (adjective)
  The adjective LEAKY has 3 senses:

1. permitting the unwanted passage of fluids or gases

2. used informally; unable to retain urine

3. prone to communicate confidential information

  Familiarity information: LEAKY used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LEAKY (adjective)

Comparative: leakier   
Superlative: leakiest   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Permitting the unwanted passage of fluids or gases

Context example:

a leaky defense system

Similar:

drafty; draughty (not airtight)

drippy (leaking in drops)

oozing; oozy; seeping (leaking out slowly)

holey; porous (allowing passage in and out)

Also:

permeable (allowing fluids or gases to pass or diffuse through)

unseaworthy (unfit for a voyage)

Antonym:

tight (of such close construction as to be impermeable)

Derivation:

leak (the discharge of a fluid from some container)

leakiness (the condition of permitting leaks or leakage)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Used informally; unable to retain urine

Similar:

incontinent (not having control over urination and defecation)

Derivation:

leak (a euphemism for urination)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Prone to communicate confidential information

Synonyms:

blabbermouthed; leaky; talebearing; tattling

Similar:

communicative; communicatory (able or tending to communicate)

Derivation:

leak (unauthorized (especially deliberate) disclosure of confidential information)

 Context examples 

This syndrome is observed in patients who demonstrate a state of generalized leaky capillaries following shock syndromes, low-flow states, ischemia-reperfusion injuries, toxemias, medications, or poisoning.

(Capillary leak syndrome, NCI Thesaurus)

It causes small blood vessels to dilate (widen) and become leaky, which can cause tissues to swell.

(Histamine, NCI Dictionary)

When the researchers injected pDox-containing silicon particles intravenously into mice with cancerous tumors, the particles traveled through the blood stream and accumulated at the site of tumors, where blood vessels are leakier.

(Injectable nanoparticles deliver cancer therapy in mice, NIH)

The wall of a capillary is thin and leaky, and capillaries are involved in the exchange of fluids and gases between tissues and the blood.

(Blood Capillary, NCI Dictionary)

Everywhere was a thick litter of discarded and ragged garments, old sea-boots, leaky oilskins—all the worthless forecastle dunnage of a long voyage.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

White matter lesions, which appear bright white on MRI scans, represent an increase in water content and reflect a variety of changes deep inside the brain, including the thinning of myelin, increased glial cell reactions to injury, leaky brain blood vessels, or multiple strokes.

(Intensive blood pressure control may slow age-related brain damage, National Institutes of Health)

He then grew serious, and desired to ask me freely, whether I were not troubled in my mind by the consciousness of some enormous crime, for which I was punished, at the command of some prince, by exposing me in that chest; as great criminals, in other countries, have been forced to sea in a leaky vessel, without provisions: for although he should be sorry to have taken so ill a man into his ship, yet he would engage his word to set me safe ashore, in the first port where we arrived.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The team found that while most patients had repaired their leaky blood vessels within 20 days, 17 percent of patients still showed leakage on their MRI scans three months after injury, indicating ongoing meningeal damage and incomplete recovery.

(Scientists watch the brain’s lining heal after a head injury, National Institutes of Health)

How vividly I call to mind the damp about the house, the green cracked flagstones in the court, an old leaky water-butt, and the discoloured trunks of some of the grim trees, which seemed to have dripped more in the rain than other trees, and to have blown less in the sun!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)