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Lick vs Leak - What's the difference?

lick | leak |

As nouns the difference between lick and leak

is that lick is the act of licking; a stroke of the tongue while leak is a crack, crevice, fissure, or hole which admits water or other fluid, or lets it escape.

As verbs the difference between lick and leak

is that lick is to stroke with the tongue while leak is to allow fluid to escape or enter something that should be sealed.

As an adjective leak is

leaky.

lick

English

(licking)

Noun

(en noun)
  • The act of licking; a stroke of the tongue.
    • The cat gave its fur a lick .
  • The amount of some substance obtainable with a single lick.
    • Give me a lick of ice cream.
  • A quick and careless application of anything, as if by a stroke of the tongue, or of something which acts like a tongue.
    • a lick''' of paint; to put on colours with a '''lick of the brush
  • * Gray
    • a lick of court white wash
  • A place where animals lick minerals from the ground.
    • The birds gathered at the clay lick .
  • A small watercourse or ephemeral stream. It ranks between a rill and a stream.
    • We used to play in the lick .
  • (colloquial) A stroke or blow.
    • Hit that wedge a good lick with the sledgehammer.
  • (colloquial) A bit.
    • You don't have a lick of sense.
    I didn't do a lick of work today.
  • (music) A short motif.
    • There are some really good blues licks in this solo.
  • speed. In this sense it is always qualified by good', or ' fair or a similar adjective.
    • The bus was travelling at a good lick when it swerved and left the road.

    Synonyms

    * (bit) see also .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To stroke with the tongue.
    • The cat licked its fur.
  • (colloquial) To defeat decisively, particularly in a fight.
    • My dad can lick your dad.
  • (colloquial) To overcome.
    • I think I can lick this.
  • (vulgar, slang) To perform cunnilingus.
  • (colloquial) To do anything partially.
  • To lap
  • * 1895 , H. G. Wells, The Time Machine Chapter XI
    • Now, in this decadent age the art of fire-making had been altogether forgotten on the earth. The red tongues that went licking up my heap of wood were an altogether new and strange thing to Weena.
  • To lap; to take in with the tongue.
    • A cat licks milk.
    (Shakespeare)

    Derived terms

    * ass-licker * cow lick * good lick * lick one's chops * lick one's wounds * lick out * lickspittle * lick up * licked * lickety split * outlick

    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

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