Etymologically
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trickle

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈtɹɪkəl/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English triklen, also trikelen and trekelen,[2][3][4] a word of uncertain origin.[5][3][6][7] Johnson found no etymology for it that seemed well founded.[8] Skeat took it as a shortening of striklen, a frequentative of striken (“to flow, move”), the verb strike, the s- having been lost after a preceding word ending in -s, such as the word for tears;[9][10][5] one of the seven manuscripts of the first Chaucer passage, the Lansdowne, has the form with s-.[5][10] The Middle English verb goes back to Old English strīcan (“to strike; to go, move”).[5][9] Barnhart, Etymonline, the American Heritage Dictionary and Dictionary.com accept this as possible;[6][3][11][4] the OED finds it possible in form and sense, but notes that no other Middle English example of the form with s- is known, and compares Middle High German strîchen (“to strike; to move, travel”) and German streichen.[5] Hoad, the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English call the word imitative, and Collins perhaps imitative.[12][13][14][15] Etymonline also mentions a mid-14th-century triken (“to fall in a flowing manner”).[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of tears, to flow or fall in successive drops: about 1386, in Chaucer's Prioress's Tale.[5][2][16] Barnhart dates the verb to about 1375,[6] and Dictionary.com to 1325–75.[4]

Semantic evolution

Said first of tears, the verb was used from 1526 of other liquids, and rarely of powders, flowing in a thin halting stream.[5] From about 1540 it also meant to drip or run with tears or blood;[5] from 1602 it was transitive, to let fall drop by drop.[5][3] Figurative uses follow from 1629, including the facetious "to make one's way", the root of the modern sense of people arriving or leaving a few at a time;[5][7] in 1657 it was used of letting things go one by one.[5] The noun, a falling drop or a small fitful stream, is recorded from 1580,[5][7][6] or the 1570s in Etymonline.[3] In golf from 1902 a ball or putt could be trickled slowly over the ground.[5] In East Anglian dialect trickle, also trittle, meant to bowl or roll.[17] The economic adjective trickle-down is recorded by 1944.[3]

Timeline

  • c. 1386 – of tears, to fall in successive drops.[5][2] Barnhart dates the verb to about 1375.[6]
  • 1526 – of other liquids, to flow in a thin, halting stream.[5]
  • c. 1540 – to drip or run with tears or blood.[5]
  • 1580 – noun, a falling drop, a small fitful stream.[5][7][6]
  • 1602 – transitive, to pour out drop by drop.[5]
  • 1629 – figurative, and facetiously, to make one's way.[5]
  • 1902 – in golf, to send a ball slowly over the ground.[5]
  • 1944 – trickle-down, in economics.[3]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To flow in drops or in a thin, slow stream: Rainwater trickled down the windowpane.[15][7][5]
  2. To move or pass slowly or a few at a time: Latecomers trickled into the hall.[15][7]
  3. To pour or let something flow in a thin stream: He trickled honey over the porridge.[15][7][5]
  4. To drip with a liquid: The smoke made his eyes trickle.[7][5]
  5. To dissipate or fade away gradually.[7]

Noun

  1. A thin, slow stream or drip; a small quantity arriving slowly: a trickle of complaints.[15][7][13]
  2. The act of trickling.[15]

Word family

  • tricklingly
  • trickle charge

Usage notes

Two rarer words of the same spelling have their own origins: an adjective trickle, tricky or treacherous, used by Spenser in 1579 and apparently a blend of trick and tickle,[5][3] and a noun trickle for a treadle (1598), a variant of trittle.[5]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  9. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  12. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  13. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  14. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  15. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  16. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  17. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)