Percolate meaning

pûr'kə-lāt'
To drain or seep through a porous material or filter.
verb
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To become lively or active.
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To spread slowly or gradually.
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A liquid that has been percolated.
noun
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To pass (a liquid) gradually through small spaces or a porous substance; filter.
verb
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To percolate is to gradually spread or filter through.

An example of percolate is when water gradually spreads and filters through soil.

An example of percolate is when an idea gradually spreads and becomes more well known.

When you make coffee in a special coffee maker called a percolator, this is an example of percolate.

verb
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To cause (liquid, for example) to pass through a porous substance or small holes; filter.
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To pass or ooze through.

Water percolated the sand.

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To make (coffee) in a percolator.
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To drain or ooze through (a porous substance); permeate.
verb
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To brew (coffee) in a percolator.
verb
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To become active or lively; start bubbling up, as coffee in a percolator.
verb
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A liquid produced by percolating.
noun
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To pass a liquid through a porous substance; to filter.
verb
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(intransitive) To drain or seep through a porous substance.

Water percolates through sand.

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To make (coffee) in a percolator.

I'll percolate some coffee.

verb
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(intransitive, figuratively) To spread slowly or gradually; to slowly become noticed or realised.

Reports on the pitiful state of many prisons have finally percolated through to the Home Office, which has promised to look into the situation.

Through media reports it percolated to the surface that the police investigation was profoundly flawed.

verb
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(rare) A liquid that has been percolated.
noun
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Origin of percolate

  • Latin percōlāre percōlāt- per- per- cōlāre to filter (from cōlum sieve)
    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
  • From Latin percōlō (“I filter"), itself, from per (“through") + colō (“I strain") (from cōlum (“a strainer"), of unknown origin).
    From Wiktionary

Percolate Sentence Examples

  • Christianity had already begun to percolate Hungary.

  • A deep stratum through which water can percolate, but in which it can never stagnate, is therefore necessary.

  • So far as the water-supply is concerned - and this is what ultimately determines the yield of crops - the rain which falls upon the soil should be made to enter it and percolate rapidly through its interstices.

  • It is on the windward faces of the highest ground, or just beyond the summit of less dominant heights upon the leeward side, that most rain falls, and all that does not evaporate or percolate into the ground is conducted back to the sea by a route which depends only on the form of the land.

  • The lime causes the minute separate particles of clay to flocculate or group themselves together into larger compound grains between which air and water can percolate more freely.

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Words near percolate in the Dictionary