Library / English Dictionary

TRICKLE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Flowing in drops; the formation and falling of drops of liquid

Example:

there's a drip through the roof

Synonyms:

dribble; drip; trickle

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("trickle" is a kind of...):

flow; flowing (the motion characteristic of fluids (liquids or gases))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "trickle"):

intravenous drip (slow continuous drip introducing solutions intravenously (a drop at a time))

Derivation:

trickle (run or flow slowly, as in drops or in an unsteady stream)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Run or flow slowly, as in drops or in an unsteady stream

Example:

reports began to dribble in

Synonyms:

dribble; filter; trickle

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "trickle" is one way to...):

course; feed; flow; run (move along, of liquids)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "trickle"):

leach; percolate (permeate or penetrate gradually)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Something is ----ing PP

Sentence example:

Water and oil trickle into the bowl

Derivation:

trickle (flowing in drops; the formation and falling of drops of liquid)

Credits

 Context examples: 

When he dozed, upon his ears would steal the faint whispers of hidden trickles of running water, and he would rouse and listen intently.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Once the water has percolated through the subsoil, it trickles down the mountain slopes to, eventually, feed the rivers and springs.

(Researchers demonstrate that Sierra Nevada is home to the oldest underground water recharge system in Europe, University of Granada)

These slower "trickle" melts reduce percolation in hillslope soils and allow more water to evaporate, resulting in less streamflow overall.

(Earlier snowmelt decreases streamflow, reduces forests' ability to regulate atmospheric carbon dioxide, NSF)

At first I perceived that he tried to suppress his emotion; he placed his hands before his eyes, and my voice quivered and failed me as I beheld tears trickle fast from between his fingers; a groan burst from his heaving breast.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

He fell down at my feet; and the other, seeing the fate of his comrade, made his escape, but not without one good wound on the back, which I gave him as he fled, and made the blood run trickling from him.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

It looks like it was changes in the oceans, in the chemistry and in the ecology of the oceans, and so you had a long-term willowing away of these ichthyosaurs as they became less and less common, less and less diverse, until they trickled away to extinction, and then that is when groups like sharks and ultimately whales and dolphins moved on in," said the paleontologist.

(Sea Monster Swam Oceans 170 Million Years Ago, Voanews)

My wrist bled freely, and quite a little pool trickled on to the carpet.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I must dip my hand again and again in the basin of blood and water, and wipe away the trickling gore.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I tried to eat my parting breakfast, but my tears dropped upon my bread-and-butter, and trickled into my tea.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

“Absolute exhaustion—possibly mere hunger and fatigue,” said I, with my finger on the thready pulse, where the stream of life trickled thin and small.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)