Seep
noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 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 Moisture, liquid, gas, etc. that seeps out; a seepage.
- 3 The seeping away of a liquid, etc.
- 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."
- 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 pass gradually or leak through or as if through small openings wordnet
- 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 To diminish or wane away slowly. figuratively, intransitive
"The resistance movement against the invaders had slowly seeped away."
- 5 (of a crack etc.) To allow a liquid to pass through, to leak. transitive
"The crack is seeping water."
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- 6 To soak. Scotland
"wi' the weet / We're seepit to the skin"
Example
More examples"If your windows are not airtight, moisture will seep in."
Etymology
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.
Related phrases
More for "seep"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.