trickle
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.
to cause to trickle.
a trickling flow or stream.
a small, slow, or irregular quantity of anything coming, going, or proceeding: a trickle of visitors throughout the day.
Origin of trickle
1Other words for trickle
Other words from trickle
- trick·ling·ly, adverb
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use trickle in a sentence
For a deal to be done, we need those trickles of rational thought on both sides of the aisle to become downpours.
Ex-Republican Congressman: Shutdown Is a ‘Dangerous Game’ | Steve LaTourette | September 30, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTBlood trickles down from another circular wound on his right bicep.
The Violent Scene at Cairo's Tahrir Square | Babak Dehghanpisheh | January 29, 2011 | THE DAILY BEASTInformation trickles out as he sees fit, with his family and entourage more tight-lipped than Cold War spies.
But what the older sister and older brother like definitely trickles down to the kids.
The body had collapsed between them, and it was running sticky trickles of molten metal.
Hunter Patrol | Henry Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
Down at the bottom a little brook trickles along from a cold spring, and watercress and forget-me-nots grow along its edges.
Mary Ware's Promised Land | Annie Fellows JohnstonOn one side of it a huge precipice presents a bare rock face from which the water trickles into a little lake at the base.
Letters from Switzerland | Samuel Irenus PrimeThe thin stream of civilization that trickles off into the wilderness, following the iron track, makes puddles now and again.
Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska | Charles Warren StoddardSand slid in tiny streams down the wall, mingling with the greenish trickles of water.
Ralestone Luck | Andre Norton
British Dictionary definitions for trickle
/ (ˈtrɪkəl) /
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
a thin, irregular, or slow flow of something
the act of trickling
Origin of trickle
1Derived forms of trickle
- trickling, adjective
- tricklingly, adverb
- trickly, adjective
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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