Forms: 5–6 leke, 6 Sc. lek, 6–7 leake, 7 Sc. leck, 8 lake, 7– leak. [First recorded late in 15th c.; the proximate source is uncertain; perh., like many other nautical terms, adopted from LG. or Du.; cf. LG., MDu. lek, inflected lēk- (whence G. leck, Da. læk; the G. lecke, Sw. läcka are f. the vb.), Du. lek; equivalent forms are Ger. dial. lech, leche, ON. leke str. masc. It is possible that the Eng. word, notwithstanding its late appearance, may represent an adoption of the ON. form, or even an OE. cognate. The exact relation between the sb. and the adj. and vb. is undetermined.]
1. A hole or fissure in a vessel containing or immersed in a fluid, by which the latter enters or escapes from the vessel, so as to cause loss or injury: said orig. and esp. of ships; also in phr. † to fall in leak, to spring a leak.
1487. Naval Acc. Hen. VII. (1896), 25. The stopping of lekes. Ibid. (1497), 131. Lost in a ship … by occasion of a leke falling in the same.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, VI. vi. 67. The jonit barge, Sa full of riftis, and with lekkis perbraik.
1531–2. Act 23 Hen. VIII., c. 7. If … the shippe … happen to fall in leke.
1558. W. Towrson, in Hakluyt, Voy. (1589), 122. We found a great leake in the stemme of our ship.
c. 1620. Z. Boyd, Zion’s Flowers (1855), 11. Consider well before a leck begin, It seemes I heare the water wheesing in.
1624. Capt. Smith, Virginia, VI. 230. The next day the lesser ship sprung a leake. Ibid. (1626), Accid. Yng. Sea-men, 19. Sling a man ouerboord to stop the leake.
1642. Fuller, Holy & Prof. St., I. viii. 20. Many little leaks may sink a ship.
1727. Philip Quarll, 56. We found our Ship had sprung a Lake.
1782. Cowper, Loss Roy. George, 19. She sprang no fatal leak.
1814. Scott, Ld. of Isles, I. xviii. Rent was the sail, and strain’d the mast, And many a leak was gaping fast.
b. transf. and fig.
1597. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. ix. § 2. There … will be alwaies euils, which no arte of man can cure, breaches and leakes moe then mans wit hath hands to stop.
1602. Marston, Antonio’s Rev., IV. ii. Wks. 1856, I. 120. Fooles, That can not search the leakes of his defectes.
1622. Hakewill, David’s Vow, vi. 229. It being the property of a foole to be full of leakes.
1806–7. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life (1826), XX. xxxv. 257. A leak in the waistcoat-pocket in which you carry all your money.
1873. Hamerton, Intell. Life, X. viii. (1875), 373. An able finance minister who has found means of closing a great leak in the treasury.
1900. Ld. Rosebery, Napoleon, xvi. 246. Russia was the fatal leak in his Continental System.
2. The action of leaking; leakage.
1828–32. in Webster.
1895. Thompson & Thomas, Electr. Tab. & Mem., 52. It will … show the position of a leak from one wire to another.
1896. Academy, 11 April, 399/1. In hydrogen the leak was slowest…. The rate of leak in the halogens is also very rapid.
3. attrib. and Comb.: leak-alarm, -indicator, -signal, devices for indicating the rising or accumulation of water in the hold of a ship (Knight, Dict. Mech., 1875).
