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Leaky   /lˈiki/   Listen
Leaky

adjective
(compar. leakier; superl. leakiest)
1.
Permitting the unwanted passage of fluids or gases.  "A leaky defense system"
2.
Used informally; unable to retain urine.
3.
Prone to communicate confidential information.  Synonyms: blabbermouthed, talebearing, tattling.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Leaky" Quotes from Famous Books



... trifle for his claim and improvements, Dobbin is hitched anew into the crazy old wagon. The broken crockery, and leaky black tea-pot, and ancient cooking-stove—the pipe of the latter running up through the wagon-top—are once more aboard, wife and children packed in, and the uneasy frontiersman is pushing out ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson

... wife. And some men say that great delight have we, To be for truth extoll'd, and secrecy; 150 And constant in one purpose still to dwell; And not our husbands' counsels to reveal. But that's a fable; for our sex is frail, Inventing rather than not tell a tale. Like leaky sieves, no secrets we can hold: Witness the famous ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... below, we were in our berths. To prevent the rain and the sea-water which broke over the bows from washing down, we were obliged to keep the scuttle closed, so that the forecastle was nearly air-tight. In this little wet leaky hole we were all quartered, in an atmosphere so bad that our lamp, which swung in the middle from the beams, sometimes actually burned blue, with a large circle of foul air about it. Still I was never in better ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... were leaky and needed a thorough overhauling in various ways. As soon as the Francis was off the bar, therefore, they proceeded up the estuary for a distance of nearly two miles and secured their vessels in shallow water, where they could be careened at ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... with nothing more exciting than the dropping overboard of Katherine's poncho. On the return trip the punctured canoe began to leak, so her crew and supplies were transferred to Eeny-Meeny's canoe and she was towed along in the leaky one, with frequent stops to bail out the water when she seemed in danger of being swamped. They spent the second night in the same place where they had spent the first, and this time there was no disturbance. ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey

... foretaste and prophecy of ruin and discouragement, of the utter futility of striving? But if his own despair was great his pain at the plight of Zora made it almost unbearable. He did not see her in these seven days. He pictured her huddled there in the swamp in the cheerless leaky cabin with worse than no companions. Ah! the swamp, the cruel swamp! It was a fearful place in the rain. Its oozing mud and fetid vapors, its clinging slimy draperies,—how they twined about the bones of its victims and chilled ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... taking care to replace the stopper tightly. Those were not the days of ground-glass stoppers and elegantly shaped exhibition jars; all the old students will recall the huge neckless glass bottles with their leaky, wax -besmeared corks, half eaten by insects, and begrimed with cellar dust. Entomology was a cleaner science than ichthyology, but the example of the Professor, who had unhesitatingly plunged to the bottom of the jar to produce the fish, was infectious; and though this alcohol had 'a ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper

... at the first large pile of driftwood they made a landing and secured a cottonwood log for oar-timber. While the oars were making, Powell and his brother climbed up to where some pinyon trees were seen growing, and collected a quantity of gum with which to calk the leaky boats. They needed all the preparation possible, for the rapids now came ever thicker, ever faster, and more violent. The walls also grew in altitude from the thirteen hundred feet of the Junction to fifteen hundred feet, then to eighteen hundred feet, nearly vertical ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... panful with the same result. He became aware that the pan was leaky, and that infinite care alone prevented the bottom from falling out during the washing. Still it was an experiment, and ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte

... dawned, but the appearances were as alarming as ever: the continual breaking of the seas over the stern had washed away the binnacles, and it was impossible now to be certain of the course the ship had been steered, or the distance which had been run; the leaky state of the vessel proved how much she had already suffered from the violent shocks which she had received, and the certainty was apparent, that if the weather did not abate, she could not possibly withstand the force of the ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat

... built for the landing of the guano. There was a good deal of timber left unused, and he drove down new piles, nailed on new planking, and extended the little pier considerably farther into the waters of the cove. When this was done, he went to work on the lighter, which was leaky, and bailed it out, and calked the seams, taking plenty of time, and doing his work in the most thorough manner. He determined that after this was done, and he could find nothing better to do, he would split up the little vessel which the Rackbirds had left ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... at this time: "The blow is a stunning one, I suppose, for I scarcely feel it. It is singular, but it comes with as little surprise as if I had a remedy ready, yet God knows I am at sea in the dark, and the vessel leaky." ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... added the Tin Woodman; "and we are exceedingly kind hearted. But if your superior culture gets leaky again — " He did not complete the sentence, but he twirled his gleaming axe so carelessly that the Woggle-Bug looked frightened, and shrank away ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... known. When the great Exhibition of 1851 opened, Turner left orders with his housekeeper that no one should be admitted to see his pictures. For twenty years the rain had been streaming in upon them through the leaky roof, and many were hopelessly ruined. He sent no pictures to the exhibition of that year, and he was hardly to be recognized when he appeared in the gallery. Finally his prolonged absence from the Academy ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement

... children has been punctured through the bows by a projectile from a belligerent Hun, or that another, in a slight altercation at sea with one of her sisters, has developed a "slight dent" in herself to the accompaniment of leaky rivets and seams, she ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling

... milder, and the sea began to be free from ice, but a single north wind brought back the most intense cold, and the sea was again covered with ice. In the meanwhile we worked hard to get out of our leaky vessel all that was necessary for our dangerous voyage, but suddenly we experienced a more dreadful storm of snow, hail, and rain, than had yet overtaken us, and which we did not expect at this ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... "A leaky eye, That's never dry, These woful times is fitting. A wrinkled face Adds solemn grace To folks devout ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... looking him steadily in the face,—"travelled! I have been up to Tudiz huckleberrying; and once, when there was a freshet, you took a superannuated broom and paddled me, around the orchard in a leaky pig's trough!" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... the river were very rugged and rocky; and we had to carry the greater part of our baggage on our backs. One half of the party helped the oxen to draw the boats up to the place where they were to be put into the water again. We found some of the boats were leaky, and a great deal of the provisions damaged, which was a matter of importance, as you will see when I get farther on in my story. We were seven days in passing round that fall and repairing our boats. During ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson

... overmastering purpose which dominated his soul. The words "New World" were graven upon his heart; and reputation, ease, pleasure, position, life itself, if need be, must be sacrificed. Neither threats, ridicule, storms, leaky vessels, nor mutiny of sailors, could shake his ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.

... now. HE 'belonged' and always has. And, of course, you 'belong' and so does Sam and so do I. We go out every other week and sit under these very same trees. Sam paints the branches wiggling down in the water, and I do leaky boats. When I get the picture home, I put Jane Hoggson fishin' ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... reported, but ordered a marine survey upon them, employing an officer who had his secret instructions, and when the report was made public it was to the effect that the galleys were unseaworthy, leaky, and not fit or safe for service. A certain sea worm had reduced the hulls to mere shells! So the stores and armament were carried on shore, and the vessels sunk or wrecked. "His followers murmured at the loss of the ships," ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... the 3rd Brigade were moved into huts at Lark Hill. They were certainly an improvement upon the tents, but they (p. 032) were draughty and leaky. From my window I could see, on the few occasions when the weather permitted it, the weird and ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... pull through this attack," he said briskly. "It's a leaky valve. There is only one rule that I have to lay upon you. It is absolutely vital that he shall not be excited. A blow with an ax would be no more ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... is how I feel just now as I pace round and round, alert for a leaky joint or a slackened nut. The solemn music of the plunging rods is all the sweeter for that I have not heard it for six weeks. ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... oddly warm till the cutting wind froze it to a coating of solid ice on my bare hands and stinging face, that I had to keep dabbing on my paddling shoulder to get my eyes clear in order that I might stare in front of my leaky, borrowed canoe. ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones

... started for Toronto on foot with a bundle on a stick, followed by the prayers of his mother, the gaping wonder of the children, and the blessing of Professor Wetherald. Toronto was interesting, but too near home to think of as a permanent stopping-place. A leaky little steamer ran over to Fort Niagara every other day. Jim took passage, reached the foreign shore, walked up to Niagara Falls, and the next day tramped on to Buffalo. This was in the wonderful year of Eighteen Hundred Fifty-six, the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... appeared to be some three miles in breadth, and on the coast the travellers saw a great number of sea otters.[13] At two in the afternoon the swell was so high, and the wind, which was against them, so boisterous, that they could not proceed along the seacoast in their leaky canoe. A young chief who had come with them as one of their guides, and who had been allowed to leave when the seacoast was reached, returned bearing a large porcupine on his back. He first cut the animal open and threw its entrails into the sea, then singed the skin and boiled it in separate pieces; ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... a comical little cuss, an' it amused me a heap to see how excited he was. He splutered an' fizzed away like a leaky sody fountain, while the rest o' the tribe kept up ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason

... a shining place in the world's eye by devotion to his art, and who, turned adrift on the ocean of life in the leaky carcass of a boat, has shipwrecked on that Fortunate Island (as men always do who find their true vocation) where he is absolute lord, making all the powers of Nature serve him, but with Ariel and ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... are always trying to avoid mishaps, and yet when they come we are so often glad of them! A leaky boat had not been in our plans, but if we could change that first wild row across the big bay, if we could cut out that leakiness, that puddling bottom, the difficult shifts of baling and rowing, would we? We would not. Again, as we look back ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge

... sought refuge. Mr. Brown, during his enforced stay there, had explored all the islands of the group in search of botanical specimens, but he tells Banks that his collections were enriched by only "twelve new plants and nothing else." On her arrival the Francis was in a very leaky condition, so that at the suggestion of Mr. Collins she was sent back to Sydney, and the party appointed to survey Port Dalrymple was embarked ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee

... sidewalks. The elevator-boy takes the place of "buttons," the engineer and janitor relieve the man of the house of care, so that it may not be so extravagant as it sounds to give one third the $3000 income for rent, since it stops that leaky sieve, that bottomless bag of "operating expenses." The income may be pretty definitely estimated in this case, especially if meals are taken in the cafe. If the family dine as it happens, the cost mounts up. Here are a few estimates ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards

... to the small walled-in garden which contains—in order of importance—flotsam and jetsam for firewood, old masts, spars and rudders, and some weedy, grub-eaten vegetables. At the top of the garden is a tumble-down cat-haunted linhay, crammed to its leaky roof with fishing gear. No doubt it is the presence everywhere of boat and fishing gear which gives such a singular ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... admitted on deck at a time, after sunset, which occasioned much filth to run into the hold, and mingle with the bilge water, which was not pumped out while he was aboard, notwithstanding the decks were leaky, and the prisoners begged permission to let in water and pump ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... song, as well as those songs in the Museum marked T., are the works of an obscure, tippling, but extraordinary body of the name of Tytler, commonly known by the name of Balloon Tytler, from his having projected a balloon; a mortal, who, though he drudges about Edinburgh as a common printer, with leaky shoes, a sky-lighted hat, and knee-buckles as unlike as George-by-the-grace-of-God, and Solomon-the-son-of-David; yet that same unknown drunken mortal is author and compiler of three-fourths of Elliot's pompous Encyclopedia Britannica, which he composed ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... general agreement is imperfect. In the National or Primary schools the percentage of average daily attendance (71.1 per cent.), though slowly improving, is still very bad.[59] Many of the school-houses are, in the words of the Commissioners, "mere hovels," unsanitary, leaky, ill-ventilated. The distribution of schools and funds is chaotic and wasteful. Out of 8,401 schools (in 1909-10)[60] nearly two hundred have an average daily attendance of less than fifteen pupils. In 1730 the number is less than thirty, and it is not ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... man that is married, d'ye see, is no more like another man than a galley-slave is like one of us free sailors; he is chained to an oar all his life, and mayhap forced to tug a leaky vessel into the bargain. ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve

... earth did she ever make Wellington?" demanded the aristocratic Nettie Brocton, disapproval spoiling her leaky dimples. ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft

... She was called the Bean Pheasant,[A] an old craft and powerful leaky; but she mounted sixteen guns, the same as the Unity, and ought to have made a better run from her; but first, she hadn't been able to make her mind to desert her prize pretty well within sight of port; and in the second place her men had a fair job to keep her pumps going. ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... me! She's some kind of finer creature.—Look at these hands!" She held them out in the moonlight, with a swift, passionate gesture. "So she's a right to her man, and I'm a fool to have ever raised me eyes to him! I have to see him go away, and crawl back into me leaky old shack! Yes, that's the truth! And when I point it out to the man, what d'ye think he says? Why, he tells me gently and kindly that I ought to be sorry for her! Christ! did ye ever hear the ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair

... Reed was now raised from the ground, and borne senseless and bleeding to the upper end of the portage. Preparations were made to launch the canoes and embark in all haste, when it was found that they were too leaky to be put in the water, and that the oars had been left at the foot of the falls. A scene of confusion now ensued. The Indians were whooping and yelling, and running about like fiends. A panic seized upon the men, at ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... purchase well-deserved contempt for yourself. And, more than that, by fishing for praise you lay yourself open to all sorts of flatterers. Honest men, men who truly respect and admire you, will show you their dignified regard and appreciation of you and your work by their silence; while your leaky slaves will crowd around you with floods of praise that they know well will please and purchase you. And when you cannot with all your arts squeeze a drop out of those who love and honour you, gallons will be poured upon you by those who have respect neither ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte

... was all run down, and the old places whar dey used to have de soldiers was all fell in in most places. Jest old rackety walls and leaky roofs, and a big pole fence made out'n poles sot in de ground all tied together, but it was ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various

... was leaky of tongue and pen, His dam was a clucking Khuttuck hen; And the colt bred close to the vice of each, For he carried the curse of an unstanched speech. Therewith madness — so that he sought The favour of kings at ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling

... called me a Jacobite, I never was in the wrong when I called them Fools. As for your political Secrets, let me be allowed to set you right, for I assure you there are no such Things in England. Men are such sievish leaky Mortals there, that they can't conceal even their own Rogueries; for political Secrets told to Britons, tho' under Vows of Secrecy, are like Bonds for great Sums seal'd in private, but Judgment is soon enter'd up in the public ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous

... breast, To give three gallant gentlemen to death.' 'I trust you,' said the other, 'for we two Were always friends, none closer, elm and vine: But yet your mother's jealous temperament— Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove The Danaid of a leaky vase, for fear This whole foundation ruin, and I lose My honour, these their lives.' 'Ah, fear me not' Replied Melissa; 'no—I would not tell, No, not for all Aspasia's cleverness, No, not to answer, Madam, ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... words no more so than the way she looked at me while pronouncing them. Yet I hardly thought it should give her as much concern as our leaky boat. The storm had grown worse, and more than once she glanced anxiously at the portholes whose glass, over half the time, were submerged by ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... of course! he will not do his best to let me run out of a leaky vessel before I have done running in! oh no, he will not be consumed with apprehensions of the inflow's gaining on the waste and flooding him! I shall be supplying a cask of the Danaids; no matter how fast I pour ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... compare such a dog's life as that with your own—the happiest under heaven—true Eden life, as the Germans would say,—pitching your tent under the pleasant hedge-row, listening to the song of the feathered tribes, collecting all the leaky kettles in the neighbourhood, soldering and joining, earning your honest bread by the wholesome sweat of your brow—making ten holes—hey, what's this? ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... orchard. [Here the supper-bell rang.] If our boat were in good order, I should now set forth on voyages of discovery, and visit nooks on the borders of the meadows, which by and by will be a mile or two from the water's edge. But she is in very bad condition, full of water, and, doubtless, as leaky as a sieve. ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... activity, or if his conscious fields have a hard rind of a margin that resists incursions from beyond it, his conversion must he gradual if it occur, and must resemble any simple growth into new habits. His possession of a developed subliminal self, and of a leaky or pervious margin, is thus a conditio sine qua non of the Subject's becoming converted in the instantaneous way. But if you, being orthodox Christians, ask me as a psychologist whether the reference of a phenomenon to ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... discover any food more "delicious" than a few half-ripe mangoes in the dirty basket of a Cuban fruit-peddler, or any "nectar" more drinkable than the water which ran into the gutter, here and there, from the broken or leaky pipes of the city water-works. Hot, tired, and dispirited, I returned about noon to the Anglo-American Club, took another drink of lukewarm tea from my canteen, nibbled a piece of hard bread, and opened a can of baked beans. The beans proved to be flavored with tomato sauce, which I ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan

... colonists arrived at the hacienda they found the ground covered with snow. They were crowded into small, leaky, adobe houses, without floors and with doors which could not be closed tightly. The remainder of the winter and the following spring proved unusually rainy and unpleasant; the food which they were given was probably of a somewhat inferior ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... mud, but it is a picturesque stretch of water when the snow melts in spring and the reflections of the birches quiver on the smooth belt along its windward edge. Farther out, the shadows of flying clouds chase each other across the flashing surface. Two or three leaky canoes generally lie among the trees, and in the afternoon Charnock dragged one down, and helping Sadie on board, ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... was as hard and ponderous wood as that: Yet when his sand was out, we find at last, That death has overset him with a blast. Our Boat is now sail'd to the Stygian ferry, There to supply old Charon's leaky wherry; Charon in him will ferry souls to Hell; A trade our Boat[5] has practised here so well: And Cerberus has ready in his paws Both pitch and brimstone, to fill up his flaws. Yet, spite of death and fate, I here maintain We may ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... noon. Lat. 54 degrees 28 minutes. Steve Newell, a liveyere from Winter's Cove, offered to take us to Rigolette for fifteen dollars. "Would I give him $1 to get a bit of grub for his family?" Got flour and molasses. Started in the Mayflower, a leaky little craft, about 5 P.M. No wind to speak of. Cold drizzle and fog. About 11 we landed at Winter's Cove. Nasty place to land among the rocks on a desolate point. From a shanty on the beach came a yelling and hallooing from several voices to know who we were ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)

... time we lost ground, owing to the variableness of the winds. We continued at the distance of between four and five miles from the shore, till the afternoon, when we came within two miles, and I then hoisted out the pinnace and yawl to attempt a landing, but the pinnace proved to be so leaky that I was obliged to hoist her in again. At this time we saw several of the natives walking briskly along the shore, four of whom carried a small canoe upon their shoulders: We flattered ourselves ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... do no good. Have to solder your ears up like—like a leaky tea-kittle, if you wanted to keep from hearin' Susanna Brackett's clack. Why, that brother of hers—Ebenezer Samuels, seems to me his name was. Seems to me they told me that Susanna's name was Samuels afore she married Brackett. Maybe twan't ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... Wilson, and of all men I ever met he is the most desponding. Whatever is to be done, he is sure to see a lion in the path. Life in his eyes is a perpetual filling of leaky buckets, and a rolling of stones up hill. He is amazed when the bucket holds water, or the stone perches on the summit. He professes but a limited belief in his star,—and success with him is almost a disappointment. His countenance ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... Reekness and then south from the land; and when they lost land they got much heavy sea; the ship was somewhat leaky, and scarce seaworthy in heavy weather, therefore they had it wet enough. Now Grettir let fly his biting rhymes, whereat the men got sore wroth. One day, when it so happened that the weather was both squally and cold, the men called out to Grettir, and bade him now do manfully, ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris

... o'clock in the evening in Steve's boat, the Mayflower, a leaky little craft that kept one man pretty busy bailing out the water. She carried one ragged sail, and Steve sculled and steered with a rough oar about eighteen feet long. An hour after we got under way a blanket ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace

... leaky dugout somewhere at the edge of the settlement. He was fat and lazy and discouraged, and bad luck had become a habit with him. After he had had every other kind of misfortune, his wife, "Crazy Mary," tried to set a neighbor's barn on fire, and was sent to the ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather

... boat. A poor craft it was, but probably as good as Ledyard's. Leaky, but could be caulked. Destitute of row-locks, but ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale

... which some of the best-known men in the annals of rowing in England have taken part. But seven years ago our river trip was attended with mild excitements; the small skiff, carrying our party of six, was an excessively leaky canoe, which had to be incessantly baled out to keep it afloat, and wherein, notwithstanding our efforts, a deep pool of water accumulated, necessitating our sitting with feet tucked under us in Oriental fashion. Hence I cannot say we realized to the full the enjoyments of boating as we know ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... arrival at the Greenlawn Apartments, the superintendent was repairing a leaky faucet on the top floor. The housewife watched him as he gave the nut a final twist with his wrench and ...
— The Amazing Mrs. Mimms • David C. Knight

... waters of the strong eddies; when, as if struck by shame at his dastardly attempt to deter us from our purpose the enemy gave the signal to cease fire. I was thus relieved (and enabled) on approaching the shore to observe more calmly all that was passing. On touching the ground, with water in the leaky canoe ankle deep, I was about, as was my custom, leaping ashore, when a sentinel from a guard brought to the spot, came to the charge with fixed bayonet, authoritatively commanding me not to leave the boat. To my enquiry for Colonel ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon

... thought 't was for me he cared," she said. "But she is so much more beautiful that—" Janice tucked the flyaway locks into the snug-fitting nightcap, which together with the bed-curtains formed the protections from the drafts inevitable to leaky windows and big chimneys, and having thus done her best to make herself ugly, she blew out her candle, and as she crept into bed, she remarked, "'T ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... it liberally, as it did just as well afterwards to burn in the lamps. The wet season was not yet over. Day after day they had torrents of rain, so that no one on board had a dry rag on their backs. The schooner too grew more and more leaky and the cargo of tobacco more and more rotten, till the odour arising from it was scarcely bearable, and at length they were completely driven out of their cabin. Often they wished to heave it overboard, but they dared not; for had they done so the vessel, ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... unmeasured seas, The arms of men, and painted boards, and Trojan treasuries. And now Ilioneus' stout ship, her that Achates leal 120 And Abas ferried o'er the main, and old Aletes' keel The storm hath overcome; and all must drink the baneful stream Through opening leaky sides of them that gape ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil

... Two-room unpainted shack, leaky roof, most window panes missing, porch dangerous to walk on. House standing high on concrete blocks. Located in alley, behind ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... employed in putting the boat to rights, re-stowing carefully everything of value, and heaving overboard several useless and heavy articles. The carpenters' first care was to tighten the hoops round the water-casks, and it was hoped that, if water could be procured, the leaky cask would now hold it. The empty cases were now broken-up for firewood, to assist the doctor in his operations; and when they heard what he was about, the spirits of most of the party revived. Poor Mrs Morley and her daughters, however, could not ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston

... play to my mind, which shall enable me to take a stand among men; and now to purchase that profession I must 'teach young ideas' till the requisite sum is obtained. The daughters of Darius were condemned for the murder of their husbands to fill leaky vessels in Tartarus—that is, they became teachers! It is hard that those who have neither been nor murdered ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... very dark, miserable place, very low and very damp; the walls disfigured by a thousand rents and blotches. The water was trickling out of a leaky butt, and a most wretched cat was lapping up the drops with the sickly eagerness of starvation. The grate was screwed up so tight as to hold no more than a thin sandwich of fire. Everything was ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... last straw. I had reserved that money in case my difficulties came to the worst. Now it was gone I felt as poor and naked as a fakir. I clung to my ship, for all the bother she caused me, but what I could not bear were the long lonely evenings in her cuddy, where the atmosphere, made smelly by a leaky lamp, was agitated by the snoring of the mate. That fellow shut himself up in his stuffy cabin punctually at eight, and made gross and revolting noises like a water-logged trump. It was odious not to be able to worry oneself in comfort on board ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad

... was equally astonished at seeing her take off skirt after skirt, getting thinner and thinner until, as if by witchcraft, nothing was left of the fat grandmother but a skeleton, a withered little crone, who wheezed like the leaky bellows by ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... out of his nook to warm himself on a wet day, Toby trotted. Making, with his leaky shoes, a crooked line of slushy footprints in the mire; and blowing on his chilly hands and rubbing them against each other, poorly defended from the searching cold by threadbare mufflers of grey worsted, with a private apartment only for the thumb, and a common room or tap for the rest ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens

... people. With the heavy sea running it was a difficult matter to go alongside of her, and the first boat to reach her was thrown by a wave upon the deck and a hole stove in her. The next wave washed the boat off, and with considerable difficulty she took on board as many of the men as in her leaky condition could make the ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.

... rocks, till the wonder was that they held together at all. There was one ancient craft, a York boat of earlier times, which the Company was taking through, and this, being stiffly built with a keel, was badly strained and rendered very leaky by the time it got through the rude traverse of the rocky portage. The men took tallow and oakum and roughly calked the seams of this boat, so that it was possible to get it across the river to Fort Smith eventually. A wagon-tire came off, which left the wagon helpless. ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough

... part of my remaining people were disabled, and our ship very leaky; and to add to our misfortunes, one of our pumps split and became useless. Under these unhappy circumstances, we pushed forwards with favourable gales till within 80 leagues of Guam, one of the Ladrones, when we encountered dismal weather and tempestuous winds, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... deprived the king, our august master, of his states, of his happiness—nay, almost of his crown? What is the cause that our beautiful and amiable queen has to undergo all sorts of privations and inconveniences, and is compelled to reside, instead of in her palace at Berlin, in a miserable, leaky house in Memel, where she is closer to the Bashkirs than to civilized people? The war is the cause ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... the foolish, contentious wife contrasted with the more gracious woman, surely every reader of common sense will try to follow the example of the latter. A complaining woman is worse than a leaky house, because with paint and putty you can stop the dropping; but how can one find the source of ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... enough, and no other could be then procured. The king answered him coldly, that he hoped it would do, and that he should give himself no trouble about it. His lordship was reduced to the extremity either of going in a leaky ship, or absolutely refusing; which he knew his enemies would impute to cowardice, and as he abhorred the imputation, he resolved, in opposition to the advice of his friends, to hazard all; but at the same time advised several volunteers of quality, not to accompany ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... said as he set him on his feet, 'lucky for you you're safe ashore, for this pond's deep enough to cover half-a-dozen giants of your height. How came you cruising among the ice in a leaky craft, I should like ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham

... Cabalva, having struck on the Owers, in the English Channel, and from that circumstance, proving leaky, and manifesting great weakness in her frame, it was thought advisable to bear up for Bombay in order to dock the ship. Meeting with a severe gale of wind off the Cape, (in which we made twenty inches of water ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 403, December 5, 1829 • Various

... there," he reported, swinging clear, and sitting with his feet in the shaft. "Regular cave. Three sacks of powder stowed already, so we're none too soon.—One sack was leaky. I struck a match, and nearly blew myself to Casabianca." He paused, as if reflecting. "It gives us a plan, though. Rudie: are you game for something rather foolhardy? Be frank, now; for if you wouldn't really enjoy it, I'll give old ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout

... cabin of an old vessel that came ashore here in a southerly gale years ago. Uncle Tom jacked it up a foot, put in a good floor, and made it into a first-rate camp. It's got bunks for half a dozen, and at a pinch could hold more. The roof's a bit leaky, but we'll soon fix that. There's a good stove, and always plenty of driftwood on the beach. It's a mighty snug place on ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... in full vigour; the Socrates of the Cratylus is the Socrates of the Apology and Symposium, not yet Platonized; and he describes, as in the Theaetetus, the philosophy of Heracleitus by 'unsavoury' similes—he cannot believe that the world is like 'a leaky vessel,' or 'a man who has a running at the nose'; he attributes the flux of the world to the swimming in some folks' heads. On the other hand, the relation of thought to language is omitted here, ...
— Cratylus • Plato

... and Otaheite cloth. The next day it blew hard from W.N.W., which again drove us off the coast, and obliged us to bring-to for two days; during which time it blew one continual gale of wind, with heavy falls of sleet. By this time, our decks were very leaky; our beds and bedding wet; and several of our people complaining of colds; so that we began to despair of ever getting into Charlotte's Sound, or joining ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook

... innumerable cows contest the right of pedestrians to the board footways and what of pavement separates the mud-holes; an ice-manufactory supplies coolness to water peddled about in barrels; the officials outnumber the capacity of the jail; the ferry-facilities vary from an unstable leaky bateau to a dirty, open-decked dynamite steamboat, whose night-service is subject to the lung-capacity of the traveller hallooing for it, and the fares to necessities and circumstances; the fine brick improvements are flanked by frame tinder-boxes; the offal of the city has not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... houses of the well-to-do. The pigeons and crows, in their efforts to get at the peas, would loosen and perhaps overturn a few of the tiles. The grannes would be sent for to replace these, would condemn the whole roof as leaky, and the tiles as old and unfit for use, and would provide a job for himself and the tile-maker, the nefarious profits of ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... a good example of the Russian idea of sanitation and cleanliness. They had been previously used for hauling coal, cattle, produce, flax, and a thousand-and-one other things, and in their years of usage had accumulated an unbelievable amount of filth and dirt. In addition to all this, they were leaky, and the lower holds, where hundreds of men had to sleep that week, were cold, dismal and damp. Small wonder that our little force was daily decreased by sickness and death. After five days of this slow, monotonous means of travel, we finally arrived at ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... gassin' away merry about what Old Hickory wanted kept a dead secret. But I usually do tell things to Vee. She ain't one of the leaky kind. And Auntie don't go out much. Besides, who'd think of an old girl like that ever bein' interested in such wild back-number ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... here by thousands float, And jostle one another down, Each paddling in his leaky boat, And here they ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... "Not that leaky thing," he said, brushing Lou's pen aside. "Ah, there's a nice one. Good boy, Willy." He accepted Willy's pen. That was the tip they had all been waiting for. Willy, then—Lou's father—was ...
— The Big Trip Up Yonder • Kurt Vonnegut

... The dangers of the troubled deep; Where, with a fierce and thundering sweep, The winds in wild distraction rave, And push along the mountain wave With dreadful swell and hideous curl! Whilst hung aloft in giddy whirl, Or drop beneath the ocean's bed, The leaky bark without a shred Of rigging sweeps through dangers dread. The flaring beacon points the way, And fast the pumps loud clanking play: It 'vails not—hark! with crashing shock She's shivered 'gainst the solid rock, Or by the fierce, incessant waves Is beaten to a thousand staves; Or bilging ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte

... a few broken steps and a broad black thing which was the boat. We got into it as silently as we could manage, and cast off. It was a clumsy, broad-beamed, leaky old conveyance, and that it was as dirty as Hewitt had described it I could feel as I groped for the sculls and got them out. The night was light and dark by turns—changing with the clouds. We shipped the rudder, and Styles steered, ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... that element of character which enables a man to clutch his aim with an iron grip, and keep the needle of his purpose pointing to the star of his hope. Through sunshine and storm, through hurricane and tempest, through sleet and rain, with a leaky ship, with a crew in mutiny, it perseveres; in fact, nothing but death can subdue it, and it ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... as I had done, "when you have learned the truth, you will not be so hasty to blame me for an offence of which I am innocent. The tea was not for me. The brig was in a leaky and dangerous state and had fifty souls aboard her. I paid ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... tropical shores of New South Wales, some were remarked that were originally discovered on the South Coast. The period again arrived, that rendered it necessary to depart from the coast, independent of the leaky state of our vessel, which materially hastened our return to Port Jackson, when the cutter was considered wholly unfit for a fourth voyage, in which the complete survey of the north-west, and the examination of the line of west coasts were contemplated. To effect this important ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... in making sure of you as a coadjutor at the Rhenish Conservatorium, which seems to be taking a turn not to be leaky everywhere. Cologne has much good, notwithstanding its objectionable nooks. Until now the musical ground there has been choked up rather than truly cultivated! People are somewhat coarse and stupidly vain there; I know not what stir of bales, current calculations, and ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... city, possessing well-kept streets lined with well-stocked emporiums, bearing every evidence of commercial prosperity, it however lacks one thing. It has no hotel runners! I arrived at midday, crossing the river in a leaky ferry boat, under a blazing sun, my intention being to stop in the town at a tea-house to take a refresher, and then complete a long day's march, farther than the ordinary stage. But owing to some misunderstanding ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... tax were imposed it would soon be made unreasonable in amount. Most arguments that the other side will abuse any power that is given to them may be regarded as falling into the class of incomplete dilemma. A speaker who uses a leaky dilemma must have great confidence in the unintelligence of his audience, but it is surprising to see how often such dilemmas ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... out of his ship three times from May 1803 to August 1805. We may write and speak about this wonderful devotion to duty, but it is only if we take time to think of the terrific things which the central figure who commanded, and the crews of the fleet of rickety, worn-out, leaky baskets—proudly spoken of as the "wooden walls of Old England"—had to contend with and actually did, that we comprehend the vast strain and task of it all. It was because Nelson was ever being reminded by some clumsy act of the Admiralty or thoughtless, ignorant criticism ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... fact that in many periods the frontier between the two countries was uncertain or not drawn as now. North-western India and eastern Persia must not be regarded as water-tight or even merely leaky compartments. Even now there are more Zoroastrians in India than in Persia and the Persian sect of Shiite Mohammedans is powerful and conspicuous there. In former times it is probable that there was often not more difference between Indian and Iranian religion ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... river Bzib, deep and fast-running, and rowed myself across in a leaky and muddy boat. I ploughed my way through deep sand, or stepped from boulder to boulder, or crushed through miles of sea-holly and prickly shrub. I came to the sacred wood in which the Ahkbasians used to pray when they were pagans, ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham

... in my eye! it is we fellows who have been catching it right along; we are the poor devils whose leaky brogans and tattered toggery would make folks throw us a copper. And then those great victories about which they made such a fuss! What precious liars they must be, to tell us that old Bismarck had been made prisoner and that a German army ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... fish pond, ten feet by five feet, was a failure, as it was leaky; but not to be beaten I commenced another and much larger one, sixteen feet by ten feet. I selected a site close above high water-mark, and commenced digging, and in fact worked a whole day at it, intending to line it with a mixture of sand and lime, of which I ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... said, "you are absolutely sheltered from all the winds that blow or rain that falls. Our villa, however, is painfully leaky and draughty at present. When asleep, the whole body is relaxed, and you are then most open to the attacks of cold or fever, in which case, Miss Deane, I shall be reluctantly obliged to dose you with a ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... a more frequent addition of water than the others, it is probable that the jar of that cell is cracked. Such a cell will also show a low specific gravity, since electrolyte leaks out and is replaced by water. A battery which has a leaky jar will also have a case which is rotted at the bottom and sides. A battery with a leaky jar must, of course, be removed ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte

... found them very rotten. Carson, and those who were near him in these companies, it turned out, had got their holdings at low figures and made money when those not equally favored lost. When "Rag" went to pieces, it was rumored that Carson had been caught in his own leaky tub; but, later, it turned out that Carson and Porter had had an understanding in this affair. "Rag" was never meant to "go." So Carson betook himself to Europe, and the great Sargent was removed from ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... was strong as wind could be, And blew their ladder right out to sea! Soon the three wise women were all afloat In a leaky ladder, instead of a boat! And every time the waves rolled in, Of course the poor things were wet to ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... secure the bottom; and though we did what we could, with tallow and oil, to make a mixture to supply that part, yet we could not bring it to answer our end fully; and when we launched her into the water, she was so leaky, and took in the water so fast, that we thought all our labour had been lost, for we had much ado to make her swim; and as for pumps, we had none, nor had we any ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... themselves a land, some place to the Eastward, to get victuals." They thought it would be better to trust to the courtesy of the country people than to keep the seas as they were, in the cold and heavy weather, with a couple of leaky, open boats. Drake disliked this advice, and recommended that they should run on for Rio de la Hacha, or even as far as Curacoa, where they would be likely to meet with victual ships indifferently defended. The men aboard John ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield

... village of Birchmead. So lazy is the place—so undisturbed have been its slumbers, from generation to generation, that it might puzzle the most curious to think why a village should be built there at all. There is no ford through the river, and, though a leaky ferryboat makes occasional journeys from one side to the other, the path which leads to the bank is too precipitous for any horse to tread. The only route by which a cart can enter Birchmead branches off from the Dorminster Road, across a quarter of a mile of meadows: and when the gate of ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... who had done so much for their country. With all his papers and his beloved journals, Flinders put to sea accompanied by a ship to rescue the men left on Wreck Reef. Three months later, owing to the leaky condition of the ship, he landed at Mauritius. Here he was taken prisoner and all his papers and journals were seized by the French. During his imprisonment a French Voyage of Discovery was issued, Napoleon ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge

... warrant him for drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell, and as leaky as ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... Hammond were constant visitors in the big Costello house after that. Their father was away, looking for work, Mrs. Costello imagined and feared, and they were living with some vague "lady across the hall." So the Mayor's wife had free rein, and she used it. When Marg'ret got one of her shapeless, leaky shoes cut in the Costello barn, she was promptly presented with shining new ones, "the way I couldn't let you get a cold and die on your father, Marg'ret, dear!" said Mrs. Costello. The twins' outgrown suits were found to fit Joe Hammond to perfection, "and a lucky thing I thought of ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... the squadron had to make some stay at the Canaries. The rudder of the Pinta was disabled, and she proved leaky. It was suspected that the owners, from whom she had been forcibly taken, had intentionally disabled her, or that possibly the crew had injured her. But Columbus says in his journal that Martin Alonso Pinzon, captain of the Pinta, was a man of capacity and courage, and that this quieted his apprehensions. ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale

... here nebber no mo'?" cried the little black figure in a shrill scream; "wot, an' hev no leaky sink dat keps me a-swashin' and a-swashin', an' no old ruf dat lets in hull buckets full o' ...
— Twilight Stories • Various

... to this particular house in Nelson Square, Fate had done to me a kindness. I flatter myself we were an interesting menagerie gathered together under its leaky roof. Mrs. Peedles, our landlady, who slept in the basement with the slavey, had been an actress in Charles Keane's company at the old Princess's. There, it is true, she had played only insignificant parts. London, as she would explain to us was even then but ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... VALVES.—Charles F. Hall, Brooklyn. N. Y.—This invention relates to a device by which the conical stop valves of gas, steam, and water works may be refitted or repaired when from any cause they are rendered leaky ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... serving out the first allowance of water for the day, we discovered that our stock had suffered a further mysterious depletion during the night, which, upon investigation, proved to be due to a leaky breaker. The leak was not a very serious one, certainly, and the staves seemed to be taking up a bit and the leak growing less; still, we had lost about three pints, which was half a pint apiece, and it was not difficult to picture conditions under which this might make all the ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood

... who did the best with what she had by her, Mr Sharnall made the most of his defective organ and inadequate choir. He was a man if much taste and resource, and, as the echoes of the singing rolled round the vaulted roofs, a generous critic thought little of cracked voices and leaky bellows and rattling trackers, but took away with him an harmonious memory of sunlight and coloured glass and eighteenth-century music; and perhaps of some clear treble voice, for Mr Sharnall was famed for training boys and discovering the ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... she gasped; "an' the sight o' you two young gen'lemen runnin' up the 'ill finished me. I ain't the leaky sort," she added fiercely, still ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell

... fluid that makes a permanent stain. Despite all these defences, if the shark is fool enough to heed no warning and to eat Diodon, the latter puffs himself up and eats his way clean through the shark to liberty, leaving the shark riddled and leaky, and, indeed, dead. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... heed to it at first, only thinking that the boat must be a little leaky, and knowing that he ought by rights to seek forward a little tin can and bale ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn



Words linked to "Leaky" :   oozing, leakiness, drippy, tight, communicatory, blabbermouthed, unseaworthy, seeping, oozy, permeable, leak, drafty, holey, communicative, draughty, incontinent, porous



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