Word.ws English Dictionary

non-verbal leak

non-verbal leak noun: a repetitive, patterned movement from the shoulders up, reflecting an unresolved perceived trauma and manifesting an old decision or strategy from the past.

Noun

non-verbal leak (plural non-verbal leaks)

  1. A repetitive, patterned movement from the shoulders up, reflecting an unresolved perceived trauma and manifesting an old decision or strategy from the past.
    • (2) more able to control affective expression and inhibit non-verbal leaks;1988, Richard W. Byrne, Andrew Whiten, Machiavellian intelligence: social expertise and the evolution of intellect in monkeys, apes, and humans, Clarendon Press, page 247
    • Such “non-verbal leaks” give away a person’s real attitude.1989, Walburga Von Raffler-Engel, Doctor-patient Interaction, John Benjamins Publishing Company, page 32

Examples of non-verbal leak in a sentence

  • The Goodfield Method is based on the non-verbal leak (NVL), which is a repetitive, patterned head-and-neck movement that reflects an individual’s unresolved, perceived trauma.Summer 2007, Barry Austin Goodfield, Saddam Hussein: The Unconscious Mind of The Butcher of Baghdad—New Tools Reveal What the World Does...
  • Goodfield's analysis of the Non-Verbal Leaks of Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein.Winter 2007, Leann Long, The Goodfield Method: An Interview with Dr. Barry Goodfield in The Forensic Examiner, page 62

Forms of non-verbal leak

pluralnon-verbal leaks
alternative formNon-Verbal Leak
alternative formNVL

Questions about non-verbal leak

What does non-verbal leak mean?
Non-verbal leak means a repetitive, patterned movement from the shoulders up, reflecting an unresolved perceived trauma and manifesting an old decision or strategy from the past.
How do you use non-verbal leak in a sentence?
The Goodfield Method is based on the non-verbal leak (NVL), which is a repetitive, patterned head-and-neck movement that reflects an individual’s unresolved, perceived trauma.
What part of speech is non-verbal leak?
Non-verbal leak is a noun.
What is the plural of non-verbal leak?
The plural of non-verbal leak is non-verbal leaks.

Words near non-verbal leak in the dictionary

  1. non-vegetarian
  2. non-vegetarianism
  3. non-velar
  4. non-venomous
  5. non-verbal
  6. non-verbal leak
  7. non-verbal leaks
  8. non-verbals
  9. non-viable
  10. non-violence
  11. non-violent

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: non-verbal leak (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “non-verbal leak.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/non-verbal_leak. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.