trickle

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   A very thin river.

   • The brook had shrunk to a mere trickle.
2. 2

   A very thin flow

   A very thin flow; the sound of such a flow.

   • The tap of the washbasin in my bedroom is leaking and the trickle drives me mad at night.
   • The streams that run south and east from the mountains to the coast are short and rapid torrents after a storm, but at other times dwindle to feeble trickles of mud.
3. 3

   to pour a liquid in a very thin stream, or so that drops fall continuously.

   • The doctor trickled some iodine on the wound.
4. ›+ 2 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      to flow in a very thin stream or drop continuously.

      • Here the water just trickles along, but later it becomes a torrent.
      • The film was so bad that people trickled out of the cinema before its end.
      • Her white night-dress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man's bare chest which was shown by his torn-open dress.
   2. 5

      To move or roll slowly.

      • Some [marbles] were found in a child's grave at Nagada, Egypt […] together with a set of ninepins and three rectangular bricks which could have formed an arch through which to trickle the balls.
      • They gather one by one, trickling into the shady courtyard, the familiar hum of Mass. Ave. wafting in from behind brick buildings and iron gates.
      • Their only shot of the first period was a long-range strike from top-scorer Ebanks-Blake which trickled tamely wide.

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