trickle
Americanverb (used without object)
-
trickles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
trickled,
past participle, past
-
trickling
present participle
-
to flow or fall by drops, or in a small, gentle stream.
Tears trickled down her cheeks.
-
to come, go, or pass bit by bit, slowly, or irregularly.
The guests trickled out of the room.
verb (used with object)
-
trickles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
trickled,
past participle, past
-
trickling
present participle
verb
-
to run or cause to run in thin or slow streams
she trickled the sand through her fingers
-
(intr) to move, go, or pass gradually
the crowd trickled away
noun
-
a thin, irregular, or slow flow of something
-
the act of trickling
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
tricklesimple
-
tricklessimple
-
have trickledperfect
-
has trickledperfect
-
am tricklingprogressive
-
are tricklingprogressive
-
is tricklingprogressive
-
have been tricklingperfect progressive
-
has been tricklingperfect progressive
Past
-
trickledsimple
-
had trickledperfect
-
was tricklingprogressive
-
were tricklingprogressive
-
had been tricklingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of trickle
1325–75; Middle English triklen, trekelen (v.), apparently sandhi variant of strikle, perhaps equivalent to strike (in obsolete sense “flow”) + -le
Explanation
To trickle is to weakly flow out of something, like a faucet. A trickle is like a drip. There are a lot of ways water can flow, but one type of slow dripping is called trickling. If your shower is only releasing a trickle of water, you're not going to get much of a shower. If it's raining — but only a trickle — you might not need an umbrella. A slightly leaky roof is trickling. A trickle is the opposite of a downpour or flood. Trickling can also be called dribbling.
Vocabulary lists containing trickle
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Lyrical Vocabulary, Volume II
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
As he watched in-the-know travelers trickle in, he noticed something missing: a chic place for them to stay.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
"It started as a small trickle and over the weeks it has got bigger - they need to get their act together."
From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026
“This is a way to invest very little money in a lot of different productions and hope for some big wins from those productions that can trickle up.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
The power cuts have made normal life almost impossible, with each outage also meaning that water supplies trickle away and ceiling fans slow to a halt.
From Barron's ● Aug. 3, 2026
And only a trickle of latecomers are left.
From "Amina's Song" by Hena Khan
I love this idea that we can bring people together and then it trickles out to other things.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 20, 2026
Oil prices would likely need to remain lower for a longer stretch of time before it trickles down to retail prices, which tend to fall much more slowly than they rise.
From Barron's ● Apr. 8, 2026
Chesney said he plans to build on each practice, and his coaching staff will set a standard that trickles down to the players.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 2, 2026
All this sincerity trickles down to the performances, too.
From Salon ● Mar. 21, 2026
And then the buses pull away, and the flow trickles down to a few stragglers.
From "Things Not Seen" by Andrew Clements
Details about what’s in the new trade deal have trickled out.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 21, 2026
The crowd, which leaned younger in part because the event allowed attendees 18 and older, trickled in around 7 p.m., and by 9 p.m., the party was in full swing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2026
Residents trickled in, bringing pets and helping the elderly.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 3, 2026
Volunteers served warm meals and donations from local residents trickled in.
From Barron's ● Jun. 3, 2026
Green-and-white sap trickled out, collecting into pools, and began flowing across the ground toward Percy.
From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan
He is waiting to catch a clear liquid trickling from a spout near the bottom.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2026
But water was trickling through holes in the heavily damaged roof.
From Barron's ● Jun. 15, 2026
“Some of the funds that the Kim regime made through selling weapons and hacking are trickling down to the residents,” said Lee, who heads a data-research center owned by DailyNK, an online publication.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 8, 2026
Additional conditions allow for shares to keep trickling out into the market ahead of the six-month expiration date.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 3, 2026
To their surprise they came upon dark pools fed by threads of water trickling down from some source higher up the valley.
From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
