Green’s Dictionary of Slang

leak v.

1. to urinate.

[UK]Shakespeare Henry IV Pt 1 II i: Why, they will allow us ne’er a jordan, and then we leak in the chimney.
[UK]Rowlands ‘Master Make Shift’ Knave of Clubs 19: Then sing me, I could fancie lovely Nanny, (And here is for you, I’le but goe and leake; Call for a pot, ther’s not a rogue will speake.) So takes his cloake, and downe the staires away.
[UK]Swift ‘Strephon and Chloe’ Miscellanies V (1736) 37: Twelve Cups of Tea [...] Has now constrain’d the Nymph to leak.
[UK]Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: To Leak, to Make Water.
[UK]Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn).
[UK]‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Royal Visit to Exeter’ Works (1801) V 107: The King no notice tuke, ’tis zaid, But, leek a pisky, laugh’d and play’d To push-pin wey the Queen.
[UK]Lex. Balatronicum.
[UK]Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
[UK]Swell’s Night Guide 73: Times are badly changed since John the hostler lived here; then every bed had a jordan; but now you must leak in a chimney corner.
[US]‘R. Scully’ Scarlet Pansy 258: A real he-man can always leak without turning on the water faucet.
[US]A. Kapelner Lonely Boy Blues (1965) 92: I wouldn’t leak on your grave!
[US]Kerouac On The Road (1972) 87: The prowl car came by and the cop got out to leak.
[WI]S. Selvon Housing Lark 125: ‘I feel to piss.’ ‘Go and find a tree. I just leak against a oak over there.’.
[Aus](con. 1940s–60s) ‘Cats on the Rooftops’ in Hogbotel & ffuckes Snatches and Lays 26: The poor old desert camel has no water for a week, / And as he doesn’t drink, the poor bugger cannot leak.

2. to reveal a secret unintentionally, or intentionally [now SE].

[US]Matsell Vocabulum.
[US]Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 18 May 6/4: The favored few [...] swore eternal secrecy, but [...] have ‘leaked’ in some manner.
[UK] ‘’Arry in the Witness-Box’ Punch 5 Feb. 61/2: The plaintiff [...] seemed to go slap orf ’is chump / And leaked orkurd facts like a sieve when the Counsel jest put on the pump.
[US]Worthington Advance (MN) 31 May 6/2: ‘Roping’ means to work into the confidence of man under suspicion [...] and become so friendly that he will ‘leak’ what you are after.
[Aus]C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 44: Leak, to impart a secret.
[US]W.M. Raine Bucky O’Connor (1910) 114: Somebody’s leaked, or else he has a spy in our councils.
[US]Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.
[US]R. Chandler ‘Spanish Blood’ Spanish Blood (1946) 12: Leak this to your favorite newshawk and you’re out a job.
[US]R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 286: Personally I don’t figure it was Lawford who leaked. He’s a politician too.
[UK]‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell Plays Solomon (1976) 90: This big builder thinks one of his staff is leaking.
[UK]P. Theroux London Embassy 192: I was asked to leak it to the British press.
[US](con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 231: You leaked word to him on Mr. McPherson’s quote dark desires.
[UK]Indep. 15 Jan. 7: Hunt widens for ‘mole’ who leaked fake nuclear data.

3. (US) to lie.

[UK] (ref. to 1880) in J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

4. (US, also turn on the leaks) to weep.

[US]G.W. Peck Peck’s Bad Boy and His Pa (1887) 44: When his eyes began to leak, Pa put his hand in his tail-pocket for his handker, and got it out.
[US]Ade Artie (1963) 57: She claimed it was the happiest day of her life, and then as soon as she said it she commenced to leak again.
[US]C. Himes ‘Prison Mass’ in Coll. Stories 164: Then she had turned on the ‘leaks’—just a pitiful little victim of a big, bad, stick-up man.
[UK]J. Cameron Vinnie Got Blown Away 126: Monday blubbed before we went to school, blubbed dinnertime we came back then still leaking after school.
[UK]J. Cameron Hell on Hoe Street 197: Now she was leaking and shaking like she was gutted.
[UK]R. Milward Kimberly’s Capital Punishment (2023) 423: I’m dripping my own tears onto her cheeks. Shaun never likes me leaking on the corpses.

5. (US) to rain.

[US]J.W. Carr ‘Words from Northwest Arkansas’ in DN III:i 86: leak, v. To rain. ‘Take an umbrella, it looks like it’s going to leak’.

6. (US) of information, to be revealed.

[US]W.R. Burnett Vanity Row 35: ‘Wait a minute. Did this leak, Mike?’ ‘To the newspapers? The kid as witness, you mean? No.’ ‘All right. Let it stay that way’ .

7. (US) to bleed.

[US]C. Hiaasen Tourist Season (1987) 227: The sonofabitch leaked pretty good. He’s got to be hurting.
[US]Big L ‘Ebonics’ 🎵 Smilin’ is cheesin’, bleedin’ is leakin’.