Also 5–7 lecage, 6 lekkege, 8 leekage. [f. LEAK v. + -AGE. Cf. Du. lekkage.]
1. The action of leaking; admission or escape of water or other fluid through a hole in a vessel, etc.; loss of fluid by this means.
1490. in Arnolde, Chron. (1811), 112. Alle maner auenturs fortunes perilles and ioperdies of alle the sayd wynes, lecage forst and egirnesse of the same oonly exepte.
1622. Malynes, Anc. Law-Merch., 195. Allowances made … vpon Wines in regarde of lecage of tenne or fifteene vpon the hundreth.
1633. T. James, Voy., 45. I would take no excuse of leakage or other waste.
1739. Labelye, Short Acc. Piers Westm. Bridge, 34. By the Help of only four Pumps … we easily master’d what Leakage we had.
1748. Anson’s Voy., II. x. 241. Jars … are liable to no leekage, unless they are broken.
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 198. We have seen an engine of an eight-horse power of this kind at work, with a fluid metal on the pistons: it effectually prevented the leakage.
1861. T. L. Peacock, Gryll Grange, xix. 161. The subsoil of London … converted by gas leakage into one mass of pestilent blackness.
1875. H. C. Wood, Therap. (1879), 509. A form of secretion, or … leakage, from mucous membranes.
2. transf. and fig. Diminution resulting from gradual waste or escape.
1642. Fuller, Holy & Prof. St., Pref. § 7. I will stop the leakage of my soul, and what heretofore hath run out in writing, shall hereafter … be improved in constant preaching.
1673. Bp. S. Parker, Reproof Reh. Transp., 11. They … weaken themselves by too great a leakage of their power.
1863. Kinglake, Crimea, I. 452. The Cabinet of Lord Aberdeen was not famous for its power of preventing the leakage of state matters.
1893. Sir R. Ball, Story of Sun, 270. The leakage of heat is … slow.
1895. Month, May, 115. The ‘leakage’ going on in the Catholic Church in the British Isles.
1900. Speaker, 22 Sept., 668/1. The frightful leakage from deaths, wounds and sickness.
3. concr. a. That which leaks or oozes out. Also fig.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies, Hampsh., II. (1662), 13. I behold these his Books as the Receptacle of the Leakage and Superfluities of his Study.
1793. Smeaton, Edystone L., § 313. A very small leakage came in.
1820. W. Irving, Sketch Bk., Stage Coach (1865), 234. The privilege of battening on the drippings of the kitchen and the leakage of the tap-room.
† b. A leak. Obs. rare.
1776. G. Semple, Building in Water, 102. Get the Water … taken out, corking any Leakages that may happen to appear.
4. Allowance made for waste of fluid by leakage from the containing vessels.
1591. Wills & Inv. N. C. (Surtees, 1860), II. 108. 40s. for freght, 40s. for impost, the lekkege in myne owne hand, by estimation, 26s.
1735. Connect. Col. Rec. (1873), VII. 563. The said retailer … will pay to the said commissioner the duty laid thereon by the excise act, substracting only one fifth part thereof for leakage and wastage.
1809. R. Langford, Introd. Trade, 132. Leakage, allowance of duty for waste of liquor from the vessels leaking or other causes.
1861. Smiles, Engineers, II. 196. The lightermen claimed as their right the perquisites of ‘wastage’ and ‘leakage.’
