Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To cause (liquid, for example) to pass through a porous substance or small holes; filter.
- intransitive verb To pass or ooze through.
- intransitive verb To make (coffee) in a percolator.
- intransitive verb To drain or seep through a porous material or filter.
- intransitive verb Informal To become lively or active.
- intransitive verb Informal To spread slowly or gradually.
- noun A liquid that has been percolated.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun That which has percolated or passed through a filter or strainer; a filtered liquid.
- To strain through; cause to pass through small interstices, as a liquor; filter: literally and figuratively.
- To pass through small interstices, as a liquor; filter: as, water percolates through a porous stone.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb To pass through fine interstices; to filter.
- transitive verb To cause to pass through fine interstices, as a liquor; to filter; to strain.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive To
pass aliquid through aporous substance; tofilter . - verb intransitive To
drain orseep through aporous substance. - verb transitive To make (
coffee ) in apercolator . - verb intransitive (
figuratively ) To spread slowly or gradually; to slowly become noticed or realised. - noun rare A
liquid that has been percolated.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb prepare in a percolator
- verb pass through
- verb permeate or penetrate gradually
- noun the product of percolation
- verb gain or regain energy
- verb spread gradually
- verb cause (a solvent) to pass through a permeable substance in order to extract a soluble constituent
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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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 2008
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I'm still processing this 'call to arms' and personally think it needs to percolate from the bottom up not the Government down.
Bytes 'n Pieces 2008
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After I let the idea percolate for a time, I decided against pursuing that course for something with much less pressure.
Archive 2006-10-01 K. A. Laity 2006
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After I let the idea percolate for a time, I decided against pursuing that course for something with much less pressure.
It Begins! K. A. Laity 2006
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Cherry let the idea percolate with ABC executives because he knew it was a "pretty risky proposition."
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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.
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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.
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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 2010
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"percolate" and keep going up and down in the organization.
ClickZ News Blog 2009
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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.
Hypocrisy of champagne environmentalists is deceitful and distracting | Ed Gillespie 2011
roseandivy commented on the word percolate
For me, this is all about the process ideas take to mature. Complete with sound effects.
April 24, 2010