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Leaky   Listen
adjective
Leaky  adj.  (compar. leakier; superl. leakiest)  
1.
Permitting water or other fluid to leak in or out; as, a leaky roof or cask; a leaky faucet.
2.
Apt to disclose secrets; tattling; not close. (Colloq.)
3.
(Genetics) Retaining some function; not completely inactivating the gene; as, substitution mutations are sometimes leaky; of mutations.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Leaky" Quotes from Famous Books



... the rusted flues and the steam-pipes connecting with the dynamo-room-pipes now denuded of their asbestos packing and leaky ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... straining of the vessel, the decks had become so leaky, that the water ran through every part of the ship. Our provisions (particularly our bread) being spoiled, and obliged to be thrown overboard, we were necessitated to be put upon short allowance. As we had no hopes of being able to support ourselves upon what ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat

... hand lightly and stepped aboard. Her weight gave the leaky boat a sudden lurch, and the water hurtled across the bottom boards to her shoe-tops: but she took it coolly enough, settling herself in the stern-sheets and tucking ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... "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

... 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 ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... 18th, landing at Rheims to refill his tanks within an hour and a half, and then coming into bad weather which forced him to land successively at Mezieres, Laroche, Bochum, and finally nearly Gersenkirchen, where, owing to a leaky petrol tank, the attempt to win the prize offered for the first flight between the two capitals had to be abandoned after 300 miles had been covered, as the time limit was definitely exceeded. Audemars determined to get through to Berlin, and set off at 5 ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... s'il vous plait!"[4] Give me a most tremendous fit Of indignation, a wild volcanic ebullition, Or deep anathema, Fatal as J—d's bah! To hurl excisemen downward to perdition. May genial gin no more delight their throttles— Their casks grow leaky, bottomless their bottles; May smugglers run, and they ne'er make a seizure; May they—I'll curse them further at my leisure. But for our club, "Ay, there's the rub." "We mourn it dead in its father's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various

... 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 ancient ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... 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 ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... is already in solution and can act very quickly. If any gets on the skin or clothing it must be washed off without delay. Cattle must be kept away from such solutions or from anything that has been in contact with them, for cattle craving salt have been poisoned by licking the outside of leaky barrels and by licking the earth around dipping vats where a little concentrate had been carelessly spilled in charging the vat. All such poisoned earth must be removed, buried, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... "put 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 ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield

... moisten the surface with alcohol from the jar, always 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 ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper

... reading aloud a spirit-stirring romance, to which they listened enwrapt and charmed, little imagining their own situation was one of far greater peril, of more exciting romance than any which the volume so vividly described. A leaky boat, which scarcely allowed three men to cross in safety, was their only means of conveyance, and a day and night passed ere the two hundred followers of the Bruce assembled on the opposite side. The cheerful blast of his bugle, which sounded to form them in bands before him on the beach, was ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... seven canoes, all of them dugouts. One was small, one was cranky, and two were old, waterlogged, and leaky. The other three were good. The two old canoes were lashed together, and the cranky one was lashed to one of the others. Kermit with two paddlers went in the smallest of the good canoes; Colonel Rondon ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... built. It also intercepts and turns off the southeast wind from the grist-mill which stands close by, for which reason there is frequently in summer a want of bread from its inability to grind, though not from this cause alone. The mill is neglected and, in consequence of having had a leaky roof most of the time, has become considerably rotten, so that it cannot now go with more than two arms, and it has been so for nearly five years. But to return to the church—from which the grist-mill has somewhat diverted us—the Director then resolved to build a ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor

... was in the bed of the creek; and I had to wait a day for the water to fall so as to navigate it in a wagon. On inquiring why they did not improve the road, I found the same difficulty as the Arkansas settler encountered with his leaky roof; when it rained he could not repair it, and when it was dry it did not need repair: so with the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various

... 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

... resulted in terrible suffering, to which the battling forces were subjected during the actual fighting and even more so while at rest, either on the open field or in the questionable comfort of an inhospitable and leaky trench. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... ashore at a cookhouse that was loathsomely dirty. A heavy charge was made for the use of the place, and also for the hire of the cook's lurky, a flat-bottomed kind of boat constructed of rough planks. These boats were invariably so leaky that on the passage to and from the shore they became half-foil of water, and the food was frequently spoiled in consequence. But, even if all went right, the crews often had to partake of badly cooked, cold rations. Many a meal was lost ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman

... in a 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 ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather

... poor little shack Yves calls his home. On the floor he had placed some pans that caught some of the drippings from the leaky roof, and a piece of sail-cloth was stretched upon a homemade pallet covered with an old caribou hide, upon which the poor little fellow was lying. Unable to bear any heat he had cast away all his coverings, in the fever that possessed him, ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... the jolting coach confide, Or in a leaky boat the Thames divide, Or box'd within the chair, contemn the street, And trust their safety to another's ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun

... the upper works of the schooner constantly leaky, and the pumps became so much worn by constant use as to be rendered unserviceable, and made it absolutely necessary to put in at this island to get the schooner caulked and the pumps refitted before attempting ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery

... 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

... and the boys were very anxious to have a sail in it to know how it would act. The utmost care had been taken to have it well caulked, and it was again put into the water, after all the leaky spots ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay

... stains are a great bother, especially to the school girl who carries a leaky fountain pen. Do not let them get dry. They will be much harder to remove. Sometimes cold water, applied immediately, will remove the ink, if the spot is rinsed carefully. Use the cold water just as the hot ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... possible. The Emden was gone; the danger for us growing. In the harbor I had noticed a three-master, the schooner Ayesha. Mr. Ross, the owner of the ship and of the island, had warned me that the boat was leaky, but I found it quite a seaworthy tub. Now provisions for eight weeks, and water for four, were quickly taken on board. The Englishmen very kindly showed us the best water and gave us clothing and utensils. They declared this was their thanks for our 'moderation' and 'generosity.' Then they collected ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... the northern route. He said the Apaches used to annoy him all the time down there, and that he came as near as anything to starving to death in the midst of abundance, because they kept him so leaky with bullet holes that he "couldn't hold ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... small opening, furled their sails, and made fast with ice-hooks. A change of wind, however, taking place in the afternoon, the ice began to separate, and, setting all their sails, they forced a passage through it. The vessel had rubbed off a great deal of the sheathing from her bows, and became very leaky from the strokes she received when she fell on the ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... down 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

... 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 dies ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... of the feed depends to some extent the economical working of a boiler, and, to a great extent, especially with certain types of boilers, its safety, durability, and freedom from a variety of defects, such as leaky seams, fractured plates, and others of a similar kind. And it is unfortunately true that the type of boiler which from its nature is most severely affected by mal-construction, such as we are now speaking of, is the very one which ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various

... pensively looking up at him. "Naturally," she said, "Marian and I, between us, will badger you into saving Frank. I shall not worry, therefore, and I must trust to Providence, I suppose, to arrange matters so that the poor boy will not catch his death of cold in your leaky gaol yonder. And now I would like to be informed of what he ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... attempt to pump out a leaky ship with a child's squirt," the Captain said. "The fire will burn itself out, and we must pray heaven that the wind drops altogether; 'tis not strong, but it will suffice to carry the flames across these narrow streets. ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... turned out to be so leaky, however, that they were compelled to return. But they did not cease to repine and to desire deliverance. Gentle-spirited and tractable though they undoubtedly were, they had evidently been tried beyond their powers of endurance. ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne

... canned foods may be rendered unfit for use by improper handling of the product before packing and that decomposition may occur after canning, owing to insufficient processing, improper sealing or the use of leaky containers. This condition, however, is no more likely to be encountered in foods put up in tin than in products canned in other types of containers. You run no more danger of poison from your own tin-canned products than from tin-canned food bought at the store. ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray

... in a leaky bark canoe; Up the cloud of Mount McKinley, where the avalanche leaps through; In the furnace of Death Valley, when ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service

... be necessary to pursue his course further than to notice a single occurrence of most extraordinary nature. The admiral had received instructions not to touch at Hispaniola on his outward voyage. The leaky condition of one of his ships, however, and the signs of an approaching storm, induced him to seek a temporary refuge there; at the same time, he counselled Ovando to delay for a few days the departure of the fleet, then riding in the harbor, which was destined to carry Bobadilla and the rebels ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... 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 in, the thing will not hold water; every gallon will be out almost before it is ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... vessel is doomed; and many hardships have been endured at times on account of this belief. I am inclined to favour the idea that these creatures are just as tenacious of life as human beings are; but to say they have keener intuitive capacity than we is arrant nonsense. It is true they do not like leaky ships any more than their crews do; and they leave them for the same particular reasons as would induce them to leave districts on shore. Scarcity of food or comfort, or danger of attack, create their itinerant moods. Of course if their pasture is good they are difficult to get rid of. They ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman

... up that way. He'd believed in that leaky heart of his for years. It was his stock in trade. As near as I could make out he'd began being an invalid about the time he should have been hunting a job, and he'd always had some one to back him up in it until about two months before we met him. First it was his ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... in the bosom of their parent ocean. It soon became almost calm; a light western breeze barely swelled our sails, and gently wafted us to the land, which we could faintly discern to the north-east. Our ship had been so shaken in the tempest, and was so leaky, that captain Thomas thought it prudent to make for the first port ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker

... off some distance from the ship, expecting her to sink in a very short time. Upon an examination of the stores they had been able to save, he discovered that they had only twelve quarts of water, and not a mouthful of provisions of any kind! The boats contained eleven men each; were leaky, and night coming on, they were obliged to bail them all night to ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... sorts of nice rubbishy things in the cellar to play with, 'cause everything that got broken or too old for use in the house—or "the wreck," as Billy called it—got thrown out into the old cellar: empty fruit cans, broken dishes, leaky old pans and dippers, parts of broken chairs and broken looking-glasses, and old kettles and frying-pans; bits of shingles, old nails, and piles and piles of clam and oyster shells; and Billy knew the minute he saw a thing what to ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... a sheet-anchor-man,[2] "there's a good pattern for you; make us a brace of life-buoys like that; something that will save a man, and not fill and sink under him, as those leaky quarter-casks of yours will the first time there's occasion to drop 'ern. I came near pitching off the bowsprit the other day; and, when I scrambled inboard again, I went aft to get a squint at 'em. Why, Bungs, they are all open between the staves. Shame on you! Suppose ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... darling. When my great loneliness came upon me, it was a solace to have the little dainty prattling thing to spend an occasional hour in my company. Gedge, an excellent workman, set up as a contractor. He took my modest home under his charge. A leaky tap, a broken pane, a new set of bookshelves, a faulty drainpipe—all were matters for Gedge. I abhorred his politics but I admired his work, and I continued, with Mrs. Marigold's motherly aid, to make much ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... station. Some slight affairs occurred in which the balance of advantage was in favour of the Syracusans. By their change of station the Athenians were now a besieged rather than a besieging force. Their triremes were becoming leaky, and their soldiers and sailors were constantly deserting. Nicias himself had fallen into a bad state of health; and in this discouraging posture of affairs he wrote to Athens requesting to be recalled, and insisting strongly on the necessity ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith

... priests intoned their Latin prayers! could he have snuffed up the cloud of frankincense, and felt that he was in the great ark which holds the better half of the Christian world, while all around it are wretched creatures, some struggling against the waves in leaky boats, and some on ill-connected rafts, and some with their heads just above water, thinking to ride out the flood which is to sweep the earth clean of sinners, upon ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... 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 ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon

... has, already. He's given a keg of nails and some tools to Norman and Billy, so that they can teach practical carpentry to some of the Mexican boys by showing them how to patch up their leaky shanties. Norman is a first-class carpenter for his age. It was Pink's suggestion that they should do that. I'm so grateful to him for getting Norman interested in something of the sort. It seemed as if he could never get over ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston

... up in torment. "God!" he cried chokingly. "I'd forgotten! He's out there on the bay, poor devil!—freezing to death if not drowned. Our boat went adrift somehow; Quain would insist on going after her in a leaky old skiff we found on the shore ... and didn't come back. I waited till it was hopeless, then concluded I'd make a try to cross to Shampton by way of the tidal bar. ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... arsenic? Surely it is a matter of equal importance. Poor people can get along without milk, unless there are very small children in the house; but when they have insufficient food, and insufficient fire, and scant clothes, and perhaps also a leaky roof, a good warm pair of blankets is almost a necessity. You cannot imagine what a compensation it is, especially in weather like the present; but how are the charitably disposed to take such a gift to a poor household when it may become the instrument of death or serious illness? Dear ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black

... wasn't us that stirred up that skunk, but we've got to take a hand in disinfecting the planet. See? We can't fight, but, by God! some of us are going to sweat blood to sweep the mess up. Officially we do nothing except give off Notes like a leaky boiler gives off steam. But as individooal citizens we're in it up to the neck. So, in the spirit of Jefferson Davis and Woodrow Wilson, I'm going to be the nootralist kind of nootral till Kaiser will be sorry he didn't declare war ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... we might play with these great subjects forever, with reasoning as leaky as a sieve, but good enough to catch the ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams

... said, looking him steadily in the face,—"travelled! I went once 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!" ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... they could go, 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. They mended the leaky canoe ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey

... tiles on the 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 which ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... passage to England; and, on the 16th of August, went on board the London Galley. But the passengers and sailors soon found that the Captain, while on shore, had neglected every thing to which he ought to have attended. The vessel was too leaky to bear the voyage; and the Captain drinking nothing scarcely but gin, had never troubled his head about taking in water; so that they were soon reduced to short allowance, which, in that sultry clime and season of the year, was a distressing predicament. Meeting, too, with violent ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris

... words, they will remove it shingle by shingle or tile by tile, until it becomes so leaky or so unsafe that the occupants— that is to say, the mechanics, will leave ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... should be sent on an embassy to Wilkina-land[167] demanding tribute from the king of that country, and should be slain there by an accomplice; that the second should be sent on a like embassy to England, and sailing in a leaky ship, should be swallowed up by the waves; and that the youngest should be slain by his father in a fit of rage provoked by the slanderous accusations of Sibich. Then he set Hermanric against his nephews, the ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... official communication of our history was now repeated at the old man's request. He listened with great attention till Captain Maxwell concluded his statement, by informing him that the ship was leaky and required frequent pumping. He then begged permission to see this operation, if it would not give too much trouble. As this was exactly what we wished, the chain pumps were ordered to be got ready, and the conference went ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall

... great many of you are doing, and you have not the same excuse that the dog has. You have been trying all your lives—and some of you have grey hairs on your heads—to slake your thirst by dipping leaky buckets into empty wells, and you are at it yet. As some one says, 'experience throws a light on the wave behind us,' but it does very little to fling a light on the sea before us. Experience confirms my text, for I venture to put it to the experience of every man—how many moments ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... fireplace and hung the kettle on the hook, blew the coals to a blaze with a pair of leaky bellows, and sat down before the fire once more to wait ...
— The Irish Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... virtue of what authority he ventured to give his orders to prizes in my presence, and without either my knowledge or approbation. Captain Ricot further informed me that he had burnt the prize brigantine, because that vessel proved leaky; and I was sorry to understand afterward that though the vessel was Irish property, the cargo was property ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... be sure of that, I will ask Antony.—Sir, sir, thou art so leaky That we must leave thee to thy sinking, for ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... was the dripping of salt water; for you wanted some, and the girl got it in a leaky pail. Seth swept out the water when he left the ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes

... went Lita, and in a moment Ben had found Miss Celia, lying in the shadow of the rock, so white and motionless, he feared that she was dead. He leaped down, touched her, spoke to her; and, receiving no answer, rushed away to bring a little water in his leaky hat to sprinkle in her face, as he had seen them do when any of the riders got a fall in the circus, or fainted from exhaustion after they left the ring, where "do or die" ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott

... though with ague, but she made no sound. Instead she leaned against the wall for support and with her heart beating like a trip-hammer continued to stare about her, listening acutely. All around was dead stillness; she could hear nothing except the steady drip-drip of water from a leaky tap. The room was empty but for herself, perhaps there was no one in the whole house. Beside her was an old bedside table with two or three dusty paper-bound books on it. Through the curtains she could just see the end of the long work-table and one ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... waves full half a century. They broke out in open mutiny, but were finally mastered by Phipps and compelled to obey his orders. It would have been dangerous, however, to continue much longer at sea with such a crew of mutinous sailors, and, besides, the Rose Algier was leaky and unseaworthy. So Captain Phipps judged it ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... observed, descended a flight of stone steps to a narrow landing stage. Under the bridge was a dirty, crazy old boat. Sharply ordering Arthur to jump in and lie down, he seated himself in the boat and began rowing towards the harbour's mouth. Arthur lay still on the wet and leaky planks, hidden by the clothes which the man had thrown over him, and peeping out from under them at the familiar streets ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich

... 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 ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... soon at sea, and speedily felt considerable apprehensions as to the safe termination of our voyage. Our vessel (the brig Governor Macquarie) we well knew was a leaky one, though her leaks did not distress us on the outward voyage, she being then only in ballast trim; but now that she was loaded to the water's edge, and the winter coming on, we became greatly alarmed ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle

... 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 of grey fog, thick and damp, enveloped us; but so long ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace

... was, 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

... of the prizes and detention of Captain Wickes, or a declaration of war. This Court then ordered the prizes as well as Capt. Wickes to leave the port in twenty four hours. The former were sent out but sold to French merchants, and Captain Wickes, his ship being leaky, was permitted to stay. Soon after this, Captain Johnson arrived in the Lexington, and we, having bought a cutter with a view of sending her out as a packet, altered our resolution and equipped her as a cruiser, and sent her and the Lexington out under ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... what had red mud daubed in de cracks 'twixt de logs. De roofs was made out of boards what had so many cracks 'twixt 'em, atter a few rains made 'em swink (shrink), dat us could lay in bed and see de stars through dem big holes. Even if us did have leaky houses, folkses didn't git sick half as much as dey does now. Our homemade beds was made out of rough planks nailed to high poles; leastways de poles was high for de headpieces, and a little lower for de footpieces. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... in great quantities on the lake. In the summer, no one crossed these roads, except parties of pleasure-seekers who went to sail or row on the lake. In a shanty on the Welbury side, lived an old man, who made a little money every summer by renting a few rather leaky boats, and taking charge of such boats as were kept moored at his beach by ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson

... delicate instruments, and as this was the last occasion on which it could be done special attention was necessary; and a large quantity of stores had to be shipped, because some of those in the Discovery had been damaged by the leaky state of the ship. This leak had never been dangerous, but all the same it had entailed many weary hours of pumping, and had caused much waste of time and of provisions. Among the many skilled ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... out of each prize captured. The cargo was then rummaged, and the state of the ship looked to, with an eye to using her as a cruiser. As a rule, the prisoners were put ashore on the first opportunity, but some buccaneers had a way of selling their captives into slavery. If the ship were old, leaky, valueless, in ballast, or with a cargo useless to the rovers, she was either robbed of her guns, and turned adrift with her crew, or run ashore in some snug cove, where she could be burnt for the sake of the iron-work. If the cargo were of value, and, as a rule, the ships they took ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... pretty good stuff. I've been thinkin' for some time that you ain't got Lucy straight, and this last kick-up of hers makes me sure of it. Some timber is growed right and some timber is growed crooked; and when it's growed crooked it gits leaky, and no 'mount o' tar and pitch kin stop it. Every twist the ship gives it opens the seams, and the pumps is goin' all the time. When your timber is growed right you kin all go to sleep and not a drop o' water'll git in. Your sister Lucy ain't growed right. Maybe she kin ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith

... the ocean wave, And a home on the rolling deep! With ratlins fried three times a day And a leaky old berth for to sleep; Where the gray-beard cockroach roams, On thoughts of kind intent, And the raving bedbug comes The road ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... was necessary to cross Loch Lomond. This was a difficult undertaking; but after great search Sir James Douglas discovered a small boat sunk beneath the surface of the lake. On being pulled out it was found to be old and leaky, and would hold at best but three. With strips torn from their garments they stopped the leaks as best they could, and then started across the lake. There were two hundred to cross, and the passage occupied a ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... leaky boat And sail for San Francisco, You've got to pump to keep her afloat, You've got that, by jingo! The engine soon begins to squeak, But nary a thing to oil her; Impossible to stop the leak,— Rip, goes ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various

... The life of self-contentment and self-indulgence may be represented respectively by two men, who are filling jars with streams of wine, honey, milk,—the jars of the one are sound, and the jars of the other leaky; the first fils his jars, and has no more trouble with them; the second is always filling them, and would suffer extreme misery if he desisted. Are you of the same opinion still? 'Yes, Socrates, and the figure expresses what I mean. For true pleasure is a perpetual ...
— Gorgias • Plato

... CONICAL 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 and ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... from Thunder Bay, and it's taken me twenty-five days to do it. During that time I've been half-starved on victuals I wouldn't give a swampy Indian. The water used to pour into my bunk at nights, and the boat was so leaky that every bit of baggage I've got is water-logged and ruined. I've broke my arm and sprained my ankle helping to carry half a dozen trunks over a dozen portages, and when I refused to take a paddle on one ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton

... dodo's existence is found in a manuscript journal—in the Sloane Collection—kept by a 'Mr Ben. Harry,' who was chief officer of the English ship Berkley Castle, on a voyage to and from India in 1679. It appears that, the ship becoming leaky on their return voyage, they 'made for the Marushes,' where they repaired the vessel, and landed and dried the cargo. At this point of their proceedings, we shall let this intelligent mariner speak for himself: 'Now, having a little respitt, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various

... sweet it is," he writes, "to have you at home. Sometimes I hear your voice through the old leaky telephone, talking to Aunt Molly; her phone and ours are through the same board, and your voice seems natural then, and unstrained, not as it is when we meet. But I know that some way we are meeting—our souls—in the infinite realm ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... remarks, and then proceeds to draw tears and moans from the dispirited Slingsby and his family by a description of the joys of tinkering, "the happiest life under heaven . . . 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 ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... was to do the best for their leaky brig, and I made her as good a craft as ever she was; so you needn't chuck that ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... somebody calling to him to get up and set him over the river. And when he got up, he saw a man down by the river with a lantern and a ladder; but as he was going down to him, the man blew out the light, and it was so dark he could not see who he was; and his boat was old and leaky, and he was afraid to set him over in the dark; but the man said he must be in Andernach that night; and so he set him over. And after they had crossed the river, he watched the man, till he came to an image of the Holy Virgin, and saw him put the ladder ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... July the Lascar came on board the Success, and from him I learned the following particulars: That he belonged to the ship Fame, which was wrecked in the Straits; that he and a few others escaped in a leaky boat after rowing for forty-eight hours. On landing the natives stripped them of their clothes, etc., but otherwise behaved very kindly to them. His companions in misfortune died the first year of his residence amongst the natives, which in ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... deceased widow; which, I suppose, was not done, for I could never learn that the ship came to Bristol, but was, as is most probable, lost at sea, being in so disabled a condition, and so far from any land, that I am of opinion the first storm she met with afterwards she might founder, for she was leaky, and had damage in her hold when we ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... glued to the blue of the sea, Peter the Brazen felt the confidence oozing from him as water oozes out of a leaky pail. He felt himself in the presence of a relentless power which was slowly settling down upon him, crushing him, ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... Company's ship, 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 per hour,) we parted ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 403, December 5, 1829 • Various

... of organic waste they generate during summer. So do people who can or freeze when the garden is "on." One vermicomposting solution to this seasonal overload is to start up a second, summertime-only outdoor worm bin in the garage or other shaded location. Appelhof uses an old, leaky galvanized washtub for this purpose. The tub gets a few inches of fresh bedding and then is inoculated with a gallon of working vermicompost from the original bin. Extra garbage goes in ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon

... night without hope, and the morning broke dull and gray, with the promise of a storm. The wind shifted from point to point until the castaways did not know in which direction they were going, for there was no sun to guide them. The leaky locker was tightly closed, so that there was no danger of the boat filling ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster

... poor sugar, poor raisins, poor tea, poor coal. One wonders, in looking at their blackened, smouldering grates in a freezing day, what the fire is there at all for,—it certainly warms nobody. The only thing they seem likely to be lavish in is funeral expenses, which come in the wake of leaky shoes and imperfect clothing. These funeral expenses at last swallow all, since nobody can dispute an undertaker's bill. One pities these joyless beings. Economy, instead of a rational act of the judgment, is a morbid monomania, eating the pleasure ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... {calculator}, {chemist}, {console jockey}, {fish}, {go-faster stripes}, {grunge}, {hakspek}, {heavy metal}, {leaky heap}, {lord high fixer}, {loose bytes}, {muddie}, {nadger}, {noddy}, {psychedelicware}, {plingnet}, {raster blaster}, {RTBM}, {seggie}, {spod}, {sun lounge}, {terminal junkie}, {tick-list features}, {weeble}, {weasel}, {YABA}, and notes or definitions ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... Sofala, where Annaya found twenty Portuguese mariners in a miserable condition. The ship to which they had belonged, commanded by Lope Sanchez, was forced to run on shore at Cape Corientes, being so leaky as to be in a sinking condition. After landing, the crew refused obedience to their officers, and separated into different parties, endeavouring to make their way through the unknown countries and barbarous nations of Africa; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... Lady Warburton, making great play with her lorgnettes, "your very shameless, ungrateful letter I received last night. This morning I arose at an objectionably early hour, travelled down in a draughty train, and here I am out on a damp and nasty river in a leaky boat, with my feet horribly wet, but determined to save you from an act which you ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol

... almost uninhabitable, the barn they have assigned to us to live in during this period of rest. It is a collapsing refuge, gloomy and leaky, confined as a well. One half of it is under water—we see rats swimming in it—and the men are crowded in the other half. The walls, composed of laths stuck together with dried mud, are cracked, sunken, holed in all their circuit, and extensively broken through ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... keelless boat), construction of; a gay flotilla; difficulty in procuring; loss and recovery of; time required to build; loading the; of the Kenyahs; bailing out leaky; difficulty in securing men for; given to the natives; upsetting of; with collection of animals and birds, nearly swamped; an unusually large; gondola-like; towed by motor-boat; with bamboo covering in bottom; the flying; legend of ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... "Leaky boats! leaky boats! Babet! no rowing them with a woman aboard! sure to run on the bank. But what about Mademoiselle des Meloises?" Honest Jean had passed her over the ferry an hour ago, and been sorely tempted to inform Le Gardeur ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... 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 public exhibition to a ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... of 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 ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... son and his new wife was takin' a honeymoon trip on. And she went on some rocks up on the coast of Maine durin' a storm. The papers was full of it at the time. And how they was all rescued by an old lobsterman who made two trips in a leaky tub of a motorboat out through a howlin' northeaster. And—why, say, you don't mean to tell me you're Uncle ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford

... 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 ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris

... there be a beaver-dam, the pond formed by it will be a reservoir which will catch and retain some of the water coming into it during rainy days, and will thus delay the passage of all water which flows through it. Beaver-reservoirs are leaky ones, and if they are stored full during rainy days, the leaking helps to maintain the stream-flow in dry weather. A beaver-dam thus tends to distribute to the streams below it a moderate quantity of water each day. In other words, it spreads out or distributes the ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills

... house matches the farm," said Beth, calmly. "I imagine it has two rooms and a leaky roof. But never mind, girls. This has been a pleasant trip, and we can seek shelter elsewhere if the worst ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne

... every man on board the Dolphin may therefore be conceived, when, after a passage of FIFTY-THREE DAYS, in a very uncomfortable and leaky vessel, a man, sent one morning by the captain to the fore-top-gallant yard, after taking a bird's eye view from his elevated position, called out, in ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... in that!" said Mr. Esthwaite turning off. "The 'Queen Esther'!—I know her. She's not fit for you; she's a leaky old thing, that that man Hawkins sails on all sorts of petty business; she'll go to pieces some day. She ain't sea-worthy, I ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner

... alarmingly leaky boat we sailed westward, two boys baling all the time. We ran into a small anchorage, pulled the boat ashore, and marched off inland. The people I found here were similar to those in the west, except that they had developed certain arts to a greater degree ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... Mandy Ann's, too. He did come,—a big, gran' man, wid a look which made me glad Miss Dory was in heaven 'stead of livin' wid him. He'd been hyar oncet before. Mebby I tole you, at de funeral. My mind gets leaky, an' I can't 'member exactly, ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes

... returning to play at leap- frog over the steeples; at the rise of government and authority in Holland, which belonged of right to the man who could best invent a shovel or a pump, the country being so leaky:- ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... it was," answered the skipper, bolting the mouthful, "you see the 'Coffin's' not in a fit state for sea; she's leaky all over, an' there's a plank under the starboard quarter, just abaft the cabin skylight, that has fairly struck work, caulk it and pitch it how you please, it won't keep out the sea no longer, so when we was about to take in cargo, I wrote to Mr Stuart tellin' him of it, an' advisin' ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... again, without lament, from between the two skeletons of pier-heads, vocal with wash of under wave, into the gray troughs of tumbling brine; there, as they can, with slacked rope, and patched sail, and leaky hull, again to roll and stagger far away amidst the wind and salt sleet, from dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn, winning day by day their daily bread; and for last reward, when their old hands, on some winter ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin

... time I had pretty completely recovered my senses, and was able to fully realise my situation. I was wet, cold, feverish, and horribly thirsty, and was the sole occupant of a small, leaky junk of about twenty-five tons, without masts or sails, these having been removed in order the better to fit her for the duty of carrying troops. She had a pair of sweeps aboard, it is true; but they were so ponderous that each demanded the strength of ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood

... viewed it indifferently in the fading light of the sunset sky. Its walls had needed painting so long, that for years nobody had even mentioned the subject. Its picturesquely mossy roof leaked. But a leaky roof was a commonplace in Brookville. It was customary to set rusty tin pans, their holes stopped with rags, under such spots as actually let in water; the emptying of the pans being a regular household "chore." Somehow, he found himself disliking ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley

... the equator; however after a long voyage, they arrived in sight of the Cape of Good Hope, and thence sailed to the Cape Verde Islands. Here this ship also, after having been so long at sea, began to be leaky, and the men, who had lost several of their companions through hardships in the course of their adventures, were unable to keep the water pumped out. They therefore landed at one of the islands called Santiago, to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair



Words linked to "Leaky" :   tattling, drippy, blabbermouthed, oozing, porous, permeable, unseaworthy, communicatory, incontinent, draughty, talebearing



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