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Spill vs Leak - What's the difference?

spill | leak |

In obsolete terms the difference between spill and leak

is that spill is a small sum of money while leak is leaky.

As verbs the difference between spill and leak

is that spill is to drop something so that it spreads out or makes a mess; to pour while leak is to allow fluid to escape or enter something that should be sealed.

As nouns the difference between spill and leak

is that spill is a mess of something that has been dropped while leak is a crack, crevice, fissure, or hole which admits water or other fluid, or lets it escape.

As an adjective leak is

leaky.

spill

English

Verb

  • To drop something so that it spreads out or makes a mess; to pour.
    • I spilled some sticky juice on the kitchen floor.
  • To spread out or fall out, as above.
    • Some sticky juice spilled onto the kitchen floor.
  • * Isaac Watts
    • He was so topful of himself, that he let it spill on all the company.
  • To drop something that was intended to be caught.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , date=October 29 , author=Neil Johnston , title=Norwich 3 - 3 Blackburn , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=That should have been that, but Hart caught a dose of the Hennessey wobbles and spilled Adlene Guedioura's long-range shot.}}
  • To mar; to damage; to destroy by misuse; to waste.
  • * Puttenham
    • They [the colours] disfigure the stuff and spill the whole workmanship.
  • * Fuller
    • Spill not the morning, the quintessence of day, in recreations.
  • (obsolete) To be destroyed, ruined, or wasted; to come to ruin; to perish; to waste.
  • * Chaucer
    • That thou wilt suffer innocents to spill .
  • To cause to flow out and be lost or wasted; to shed.
  • * Dryden
    • to revenge his blood so justly spilt
  • To cover or decorate with slender pieces of wood, metal, ivory, etc.; to inlay.
    • (Spenser)
  • (nautical) To relieve a sail from the pressure of the wind, so that it can be more easily reefed or furled, or to lessen the strain.

    • Derived terms

    * spiller * spill blood * spill one's seed * spill out * spill over * spill the beans

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (countable) A mess of something that has been dropped.
  • A fall or stumble.
    • The bruise is from a bad spill he had last week.
  • A small stick or piece of paper used to light a candle, cigarette etc by the transfer of a flame from a fire.
  • * 2008 , Elizabeth Bear, Ink and Steel: A Novel of the Promethean Age :
    • Kit froze with the pipe between his teeth, the relit spill pressed to the weed within it.
  • A slender piece of anything.
  • # A peg or pin for plugging a hole, as in a cask; a spile.
  • # A metallic rod or pin.
  • (mining) One of the thick laths or poles driven horizontally ahead of the main timbering in advancing a level in loose ground.
  • The situation where sound is picked up by a microphone from a source other than that which is intended.
  • (obsolete) A small sum of money.
    • (Ayliffe)
  • (Australia, politics) A declaration that the leadership of a parliamentary party is vacant, and open for re-election. Short form of (l)

    • Quotations

    * (English Citations of "spill")

    Derived terms

    * spill one's seed * spillway * take a spill

    Anagrams

    * English ergative verbs ---- ==Norwegian Bokmål==

    Alternative forms

    * (l)

    Noun

  • game, play

    • Inflection

    Derived terms

    * (l) * (l) * (l)

    Verb

    (head)

    • See also

    * (spel) ----

    leak

    English

    Noun

    (leak) (en noun)
  • A crack, crevice, fissure, or hole which admits water or other fluid, or lets it escape.
    • a leak in a roof
    a leak in a boat
    a leak in a gas pipe
  • The entrance or escape of a fluid through a crack, fissure, or other aperture.
    • The leak gained on the ship's pumps.
  • A divulgation, or disclosure, of information held secret until then.
    • The leaks by Chelsea Manning showed the secrets of the US military.
  • The person through whom such divulgation, or disclosure, occurred.
    • The press must have learned about the plan through a leak .
  • (computing) The gradual loss of a system resource caused by failure to deallocate previously reserved portions.
    • resource leak
    memory leak
  • An act of urination.
    • I have to take a leak .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To allow fluid to escape or enter something that should be sealed.
    • The faucet has been leaking since last month.
  • To reveal secret information.
    • ''Someone must have leaked it to our competitors that the new product will be out soon.

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (obsolete) Leaky.
  • * 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , VI.8:
    • Yet is the bottle leake , and bag so torne, / That all which I put in fals out anon […].

    Anagrams

    * * ----