▪ I. leaky, a.
(ˈliːkɪ)
[f. leak n. + -y1.]
1. a. Having a leak or leaks; full of leaks; giving passage to water or other fluid through a hole or fissure.
| 1606 Shakes. Ant. & Cl. iii. xiii. 63 Sir, sir, thou art so leakie That we must leaue thee to thy sinking. 1610 ― Temp. i. i. 51. 1677 W. Hubbard Narrative ii. 67 He would not venture himself in our Leakie Canoo. 1732 Berkeley Alciphr. ii. §13 A leaky vessel, always filling and never full. 1791 W. Jessop Rep. Riv. Witham 15 Lining the Canal through the leaky Soil..450l. 1835 Sir J. Ross Narr. 2nd Voy. ii. 11 The ship was so leaky as to require the constant use of two pumps. 1868 Morris Earthly Par. I. 98 We lay Leaky, dismasted, a most helpless prey To winds and waves. 1872 Yeats Techn. Hist. Comm. 141 Leaky casks. 1881 Daily News 10 Mar. 6/1 A leaky gas pipe. |
b. Incontinent of urine; passing urine frequently or in large quantities.
| 1727 Gay Begg. Op. iii. ii, The Dog is leaky in his Liquor. 1897 Allbutt's Syst. Med. III. 242 The patient..had never had an illness in his life, except that he had always been a ‘leaky subject’. Ibid., Such patients seem to drift imperceptibly into the ‘leaky’ state. |
c. fig. Of persons, their tongues: Not reticent, blabbing. Of memory: Not retentive.
| 1692 R. L'Estrange Fables ccccxxvii. 402 Women are generally so leaky, that..I have hardly met with one of the Sex that could not hold her Breath longer than she should keep a secret. 1703 Quick Dec. Wife's Sister 18 Our Memories are exceeding feeble, leaky and forgetful. 1740 Somerville Hobbinol i. 242 But be thou, my Muse! No leaky Blab. 1805 G. Rose's Diaries (1860) I. 244 It is true he is leaky, but I believe would not willingly tell anything. 1845 H. Rogers Ess. I. iii. 93 [It] must depend..on the doubtful authority, and leaky memory of those who report it. |
d. Electr. Retaining electric charge only with gradual loss; connected to or having a high resistance that acts as a ‘leak’; leaky-grid detection, detection in which the signal is applied to the grid of a valve through a series capacitor and a resistor (the latter being connected as a grid leak or in parallel with the capacitor).
| 1904 A. Russell Treat. Theory Alternating Currents I. xvii. 384 (heading) Inductive coil and leaky condenser. 1922 J. Scott-Taggart Wireless Vacuum Tubes (ed. 4) iv. 89 Leaky grid condenser rectification. Ibid. vii. 132 If we employ a leaky grid condenser we can obtain a suitable negative grid potential without..a battery. Ibid. viii. 167 A leaky grid condenser may be connected in the grid circuit. 1934 Jrnl. Inst. Electr. Engin. LXXV. 298/2 Leaky-grid detection is used in this receiver. 1962 D. F. Shaw Introd. Electronics ii. 35 A leaky capacitor..in which the leakage resistance is represented by a shunt. 1968 Radio Communication Handbk. (ed. 4) ii. 17/1 Any d.c. voltage developed across the grid leak by the rectification of a modulated or an unmodulated signal will thus constitute a negative bias for the grid and the anode current in the triode will fall... An excessively strong signal will tend to bias the valve beyond the cut-off point, and therefore a leaky-grid detector ceases to function satisfactorily when the input voltage is too great. 1969 R. G. Middleton Transistor Television Servicing Guide ix. 105/1 A leaky transistor, such as 22..increases in temperature. |
e. Of persons: lachrymose. Also as n.
| 1905 H. A. Vachell Hill vii. 151 ‘I ain't the leaky sort,’ she added fiercely, still gasping. 1959 I. & P. Opie Lore & Lang. Schoolch. x. 187 Croydon boys have twenty names for a cry-baby:..leaky, [etc.]. |
2. Genetics. Of a mutant: producing the protein specified by the mutated gene in a form with reduced activity compared with that produced by the wild type. Of a protein so produced: having reduced activity. Cf. hypomorphic adj. (s.v. hypo- II).
| 1955 Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. XLI. 347 Under given conditions, however, the coefficient can be used as a comparative index of degree of phenotypic effect, a ‘leaky’ mutant having a high coefficient. 1959 Ibid. XLV. 204 This strain is a leaky derivative of strain 21863 [of Neurospora crassa]. 1961 Nature 30 Dec. 1227/2 Mutants produced by acridines are seldom ‘leaky’; they are almost always completely lacking in the function of the gene. 1966 E. A. Carlson Gene xiii. 112 The microbial geneticist today uses the term ‘leaky mutant’ for hypomorph. 1968 R. C. King Dict. Genetics 141 Leaky protein, a mutant protein that has a subnormal degree of biological activity. |
▪ II. leaky
variant of lakie Sc.