Leak vs Drain - What's the difference?

As nouns the difference between leak and drain

is that leak is a crack, crevice, fissure, or hole which admits water or other fluid, or lets it escape while drain is a conduit allowing liquid to flow out of an otherwise contained volume.

As verbs the difference between leak and drain

is that leak is to allow fluid to escape or enter something that should be sealed while drain is to lose liquid.

As an adjective leak

is leaky.

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

* * ----

drain

English

Noun

(en noun)

A conduit allowing liquid to flow out of an otherwise contained volume.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-03, volume=101, issue=2, page=114, magazine=(American Scientist)

, author=Frank Fish, George Lauder , title= Not Just Going with the Flow , passage=An extreme version of vorticity is a vortex . The vortex is a spinning, cyclonic mass of fluid, which can be observed in the rotation of water going down a drain , as well as in smoke rings, tornados and hurricanes.}}

An access point or conduit for rainwater that drains directly downstream in a (drainage) basin without going through sewers or water treatment in order to prevent or belay floods.

Something consuming resources and providing nothing in return.

(label) An act of urination.

(label) The name of one terminal of a field effect transistor (FET).

Derived terms

* circle the drain * down the drain * drain fly

Verb

(en verb)

To lose liquid.

The clogged sink drained slowly.

To flow gradually.

The water of low ground drains off.

(ergative) To cause liquid to flow out of.

Please drain the sink. It's full of dirty water.

(ergative) To convert a perennially wet place into a dry one.

They had to drain the swampy land before the parking lot could be built.

To deplete of energy or resources.

The stress of this job is really draining me.

To draw off by degrees; to cause to flow gradually out or off; hence, to exhaust.

* Francis Bacon

Fountains drain the water from the ground adjacent.

* Motley

But it was not alone that he drained their treasure and hampered their industry.

(obsolete) To filter.

* Francis Bacon

Salt water, drained through twenty vessels of earth, hath become fresh.

(pinball) To fall off the bottom of the playfield.

* 1990 , Steven A. Schwartz, Compute's Nintendo Secrets

When a ball finally drains , it's gulped down by a giant gator beneath the set of flippers.

Derived terms

* drainage * drain the lizard (vulgar)