Trickle

//ˈtɹɪkəl// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A very thin river.

    "The brook had shrunk to a mere trickle."

  2. 2
    flowing in drops; the formation and falling of drops of liquid wordnet
  3. 3
    A very thin flow; the sound of such a flow.

    "The tap of the washbasin in my bedroom is leaking and the trickle drives me mad at night."

Verb
  1. 1
    to pour a liquid in a very thin stream, or so that drops fall continuously. transitive

    "The doctor trickled some iodine on the wound."

  2. 2
    run or flow slowly, as in drops or in an unsteady stream wordnet
  3. 3
    to flow in a very thin stream or drop continuously. intransitive

    "Here the water just trickles along, but later it becomes a torrent."

  4. 4
    To move or roll slowly. intransitive

    "Some [marbles] were found in a child's grave at Nagada, Egypt […] together with a set of ninepins and three rectangular bricks which could have formed an arch through which to trickle the balls."

Synonyms

All synonyms
dripa fewcondensationcondensedistilldistillation

Example

More examples

"I felt the sweat trickle down my brow."

Etymology

From Middle English triklen, likely a rebracketing (e.g. teres strikled > teerys trikled (“tears trickled”)) of Middle English striklen (“to trickle”), equivalent to strike + -le. For other similar cases of incorrect division, see also apron, daffodil, newt, nickname, orange, umpire.

Related phrases

trickle chargetrickle chargertrickle downtrickle truthtrickle-downtrickle-up trend

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.