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Seep

//siːp// noun, verb

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A small spring, pool, or other spot where liquid from the ground (e.g. water, petroleum or tar) has oozed to the surface; a place of seeping.
  2. 2
    Moisture, liquid, gas, etc. that seeps out; a seepage.
  3. 3
    The seeping away of a liquid, etc.
  4. 4
    A seafloor vent.

    "Another idea was that filamentous bacteria covering the hairs [of the Yeti crab] would either neutralize gases emitted from the vent or serve the crab directly as a food source. And this last idea received support when a second species of Yeti crab was discovered on cold seeps on the deep-sea floor near Costa Rica."

Verb
  1. 1
    To ooze or pass slowly through pores or other small openings, and in overly small quantities; said of liquids, etc. intransitive

    "Water has seeped through the roof."

  2. 2
    pass gradually or leak through or as if through small openings wordnet
  3. 3
    To enter or penetrate slowly; to spread or diffuse. figuratively, intransitive

    "Woe seeped through her heart thinking of what had befallen their ethnic group."

  4. 4
    To diminish or wane away slowly. figuratively, intransitive

    "The resistance movement against the invaders had slowly seeped away."

  5. 5
    (of a crack etc.) To allow a liquid to pass through, to leak. transitive

    "The crack is seeping water."

Show 1 more definition
  1. 6
    To soak. Scotland

    "wi' the weet / We're seepit to the skin"

Etymology

Etymology 1

Variant of sipe, from Middle English *sipen, from Old English sipian, from Proto-Germanic *sipōną, derivative of *sīpaną, from Proto-Indo-European *seyb-, *sib- (“to pour out, drip, trickle”). See also Middle Dutch sīpen (“to drip”), German Low German siepern (“to seep”), archaic German seifen (“to trickle blood”); also Latin sēbum (“suet, tallow”), Ancient Greek εἴβω (eíbō, “to drop, drip”)). See soap.

Etymology 2

Variant of sipe, from Middle English *sipen, from Old English sipian, from Proto-Germanic *sipōną, derivative of *sīpaną, from Proto-Indo-European *seyb-, *sib- (“to pour out, drip, trickle”). See also Middle Dutch sīpen (“to drip”), German Low German siepern (“to seep”), archaic German seifen (“to trickle blood”); also Latin sēbum (“suet, tallow”), Ancient Greek εἴβω (eíbō, “to drop, drip”)). See soap.

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