seep
/siːp/
seep verb: to ooze or pass slowly through pores or other small openings, and in overly small quantities; said of liquids, etc.
Verb
seep (third-person singular simple present seeps, present participle seeping, simple past and past participle seeped)
- To ooze or pass slowly through pores or other small openings, and in overly small quantities; said of liquids, etc.
- Water has seeped through the roof.
- The water steadily seeped in through the thirl.
- To enter or penetrate slowly; to spread or diffuse.
- Woe seeped through her heart thinking of what had befallen their ethnic group.
- Fear began to seep into the local community over the contamination of their fishpond.
- To diminish or wane away slowly.
- The resistance movement against the invaders had slowly seeped away.
- (of a crack etc.) To allow a liquid to pass through, to leak.
- The crack is seeping water.
- If the crack is seeping water, the foam totally stops the leakage.2015, Crack repair service, archived from the original on 23 Feb 2020
- To soak.
- wi' the weet / We're seepit to the skin1844, James Lemon, editor, Lays of St. Mungo; Or, The Minstrelsy of the West [quoted in the EDD]
- a young lad's mind, whilk had seeped in, for many a day, the rain of adversity1897, W. Beatty, The Secretar: Based on the Story of the Casket Letters [quoted in the EDD], page 108
Noun
seep (plural seeps)
- 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.
- Moisture, liquid, gas, etc. that seeps out; a seepage.
- The seeping away of a liquid, etc.
- 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...2012, Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, page 356
seep meaning in Urdu, Malayalam, Kannada and Punjabi
seep in Urdu
- رسنا
seep in Malayalam
- ഊറുക, കുറേശ്ലേ ചോരുക, ഇറ്റിറ്റുവീഴുക, വഴിയുക
seep in Kannada
- ಜಿನುಗು, ಸೋರು, ಸ್ರವಿಸು, ತೊಟ್ಟಿಕ್ಕು, ಸೆಳೆಯಿಕ್ಕು, ಒಸರು
seep in Punjabi
- to seep, pass through, drip
- ਝਰਨਾ jharnā
More languagesFewer languages
- seep in Thai
- ซึม sʉm
- seep in Myanmar
- စိမ့် cim.
Examples of seep in a sentence
- Just when I thought I was done checking it over, I smelled coolant....remove the engine cover and bam! 1 inch crack is seeping coolant!2009 April 16, Crownvic forums:
- 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.2012, Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, page 356:
Synonyms of seep
Forms of seep
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | seeps |
| present participle | seeping |
| past participle | seeped |
| past | seeped |
| Noun | |
| plural | seeps |
Origin of seep
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.
Words formed from seep
Words that rhyme with seep
Questions about seep
- What does seep mean?
- Seep means to ooze or pass slowly through pores or other small openings, and in overly small quantities; said of liquids, etc.
- What is seep in Urdu?
- Seep in Urdu is رسنا. See Seep meaning in Urdu.
- How do you use seep in a sentence?
- Just when I thought I was done checking it over, I smelled coolant....remove the engine cover and bam! 1 inch crack is seeping coolant!
- What part of speech is seep?
- Seep can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce seep?
- Seep is pronounced /siːp/.
- What is the past tense of seep?
- The past tense of seep is seeped.
Words near seep in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: seep (page history and authors); seep (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); seep (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); seep (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਝਰਨਾ (Punjabi) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-seep.wav.
Cite this entry: “seep.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/seep. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.