Obs. Forms: 1 hlec, 6 lek(e, 6–7 leake, 7 Sc. leck. [In OE. hlec; after OE. the word does not appear until the 16th c. when it may have been adopted from LG., MDu. lek (inflected lēk-), whence mod.Du. lek, Sw. läck, Da. læk, G. leck; cogn. w. ON. lekr, Ger. dial. lech of the same meaning, and with LEAK sb. and v.

1

  The OE. form presents difficulties; the spelling hlec occurs in the Hatton MS. of the Pastoral Care (9th c.) and in at least three glosses, so that it cannot well be a mere error; on the other hand the (apparently) cognate words in the other Teut. langs. show no trace of the h; in the ON. vb. leka the initial l (not hl) is attested by the alliteration.]

2

  = LEAKY.

3

c. 897.  K. Ælfred, Gregory’s Past., lvii. 437. Swiðe lytlum sicerað ðæt wæter & swiðe deʓellice on ðæt hlece scip.

4

c. 1100.  in Napier, Glosses, ii. 480. Rimosa, hlec.

5

a. 1530.  Heywood, Play Weather (Brandl), 800. Olde moones be leake, they can holde no water.

6

1544.  Extracts Aberd. Reg. (1844), I. 205. The Inglismen … knawand that thair schip was lek, geve thaim thair leif.

7

1590.  Spenser, F. Q., I. v. 35. And fifty sisters water in leke [ed. 1596 leake] vessels draw.

8

1622.  R. Hawkins, Voy. S. Sea (1847), 131. Thus, this leake-ship went well into England.

9

1626.  Capt. Smith, Accid. Yng. Sea-men, 13. A ship cranke sided, Iron sicke, spewes her okum, a leake ship.

10

1637–50.  Row, Hist. Kirk (Wodrow Soc.), 398. The ship not tight enough, being leck.

11

a. 1678.  Marvell, Poems, Char. Holland, 45. Who best could know to pump an earth so leak.

12