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  1. percolate love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To cause (liquid, for example) to pass through a porous substance or small holes; filter.
  2. v. To pass or ooze through: Water percolated the sand.
  3. v. To make (coffee) in a percolator.
  4. v. To drain or seep through a porous material or filter.
  5. v. Informal To become lively or active.
  6. v. Informal To spread slowly or gradually.
  7. n. A liquid that has been percolated.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To strain through; cause to pass through small interstices, as a liquor; filter: literally and figuratively.
  2. To pass through small interstices, as a liquor; filter: as, water percolates through a porous stone.
  3. n. That which has percolated or passed through a filter or strainer; a filtered liquid.

Wiktionary

  1. v. transitive To pass a liquid through a porous substance; to filter.
  2. v. intransitive To drain or seep through a porous substance.
  3. v. transitive To make (coffee) in a percolator.
  4. v. intransitive (figuratively) To spread slowly or gradually; to slowly become noticed or realised.
  5. n. rare A liquid that has been percolated.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. To cause to pass through fine interstices, as a liquor; to filter; to strain.
  2. v. To pass through fine interstices; to filter.

WordNet 3.0

  1. v. prepare in a percolator
  2. v. pass through
  3. v. permeate or penetrate gradually
  4. n. the product of percolation
  5. v. gain or regain energy
  6. v. spread gradually
  7. v. cause (a solvent) to pass through a permeable substance in order to extract a soluble constituent

Etymologies

  1. From Latin percōlāre ("to filter"), itself, from per- ("through") + colare ("to strain") (from colum ("a strainer"), of unknown origin). (Wiktionary)
  2. Latin percōlāre, percōlāt- : per-, per- + cōlāre, to filter (from cōlum, sieve). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “I'm still processing this 'call to arms' and personally think it needs to percolate from the bottom up not the Government down.”

    December 2008

  • “After I let the idea percolate for a time, I decided against pursuing that course for something with much less pressure.”

    It Begins!

  • “Cherry let the idea percolate with ABC executives because he knew it was a "pretty risky proposition.”

    RockyMountainNews.com

  • “So, we'll wait for things to kind of percolate, you know, the sun goes to work in Atlanta out ahead of the system and things do get -- start to get a little bit turbulent with that strong, well, now March, almost end of March sunshine and, boy, spring just a couple days away.”

    CNN Transcript Mar 18, 2008

  • “I let the idea percolate for awhile and then decided I must go…not in the sense of being a “groupy”, but rather in the sense of honoring the deep heart connection with Madeleine’s writing of which I wrote in my initial response.”

    Madeleine L’Engle’s Memorial Service « educating alice

  • “At very high fields, the filaments formed an interconnected network across which charges could travel, or 'percolate'.”

    PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories

  • “percolate" and keep going up and down in the organization.”

    ClickZ News Blog

  • “Like the highly discredited theory of "trickle-down" economics, there is a belief that this "eco-leadership" will somehow percolate into our collective consciousness and create demand for environmental goods and services at all levels of the economy.”

    The Guardian: Hypocrisy of champagne environmentalists is deceitful and distracting | Ed Gillespie

  • “Senior leadership is still important: There need to be forward-thinking leaders who "allow for the culture of ideas to percolate up," says Dr. Robinson.”

    The Wall Street Journal: Allowing Innovation to Bubble Up

  • “I like finishing stories that percolate and percolate and finally go, and then other people like them too.”

    Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway

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synonyms (3)

Words with the same meaning

  1. filter
  1. strain
  1. exude

hypernyms (11)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. trickle
  2. dribble
  1. filter
  2. filtrate
  1. recuperate
  2. convalesce
  1. recover
  2. fan out
  1. diffuse
  2. spread out
  1. spread

reverse dictionary (15)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. infiltrate
  2. filter
  3. transcolate
  1. seep
  2. silt
  3. leachy
  1. lixiviate
  2. perk
  3. leach
  1. ooze
  2. sicker
  3. strain
  1. underdrain
  2. pass
  3. sop

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  • roseandivy For me, this is all about the process ideas take to mature. Complete with sound effects. Apr 23, 2010

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‘percolate’ has been looked up 4334 times, loved by 10 people, added to 64 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 13.