trickle
Americanverb (used without object)
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to flow or fall by drops, or in a small, gentle stream.
Tears trickled down her cheeks.
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to come, go, or pass bit by bit, slowly, or irregularly.
The guests trickled out of the room.
verb (used with object)
verb
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to run or cause to run in thin or slow streams
she trickled the sand through her fingers
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(intr) to move, go, or pass gradually
the crowd trickled away
noun
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a thin, irregular, or slow flow of something
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the act of trickling
Other Word Forms
- trickling adjective
- tricklingly adverb
- trickly adjective
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
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.
After the town locked down during and after the raid, residents began trickling out on Monday, he said, with warnings to make their way home carefully.
As information began to trickle into the local community, people began to come together to help each other, he said.
From BBC
The Kurds had repeatedly urged countries to take back their citizens but most only repatriated a trickle, fearing security threats and a domestic political backlash.
From Barron's
Rights groups’ estimates grow to 10,000 or more dead as new details trickle out.
In addition, it “may prove good news for inflation and the Fed because tariffs were just starting to trickle through to prices,” as David Russell, Global Head of Market Strategy at TradeStation noted.
From Barron's
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.
