percolate

verb per·co·late \ ˈpər-kə-ˌlāt , nonstandard -kyə- \

|Updated on: 13 Aug 2018

Definition of percolate

percolated; percolating

1 a : to cause (a solvent) to pass through a permeable substance (such as a powdered drug) especially for extracting a soluble constituent

b : to prepare (coffee) in a percolator

2 : to be diffused through : penetrate

intransitive verb

1 : to ooze or trickle through a permeable substance : seep

2 a : to become percolated

b : to become lively or effervescent

3 : to spread gradually

allow the sunlight to percolate into our rooms
—Norman Douglas

4 : simmer 2a

the feud had been percolating for a long time

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percolation

play \ˌpər-kə-ˈlā-shən\ noun

See percolate defined for English-language learners

See percolate defined for kids

Examples of percolate in a Sentence

Sunlight percolated down through the trees.
Rumors percolated throughout the town.
There is nothing like percolating coffee over an open campfire.
Coffee was percolating on the stove.

Recent Examples of percolate from the Web

Signs of trouble at the Charlotte School of Law percolated for years.

— jon marcus /, NBC News, "As the Trump administration pulls back, states step in to regulate questionable colleges," 6 July 2018
As her initial ambivalence to education shows, milder forms of the idea behind Boko Haram have been percolating in Nigerian society for generations.

— mark sappenfield, The Christian Science Monitor, "Nigeria’s schoolgirl rebellion," 26 June 2018
Concern about Taiwan -- and recent sparring between Beijing and Washington over the democratically run island -- percolated discussions at the annual IISS Shangri-La Dialogue, which was otherwise focused on action further south.

— keith zhai, Bloomberg.com, "As U.S. Confronts China on Trade, Taiwan Tensions Quietly Build," 3 June 2018
Concerns about the link between violent video games and real acts of violence have percolated for decades.

— alex horton, Washington Post, "What Parkland parents think of a new video game that lets people shoot up a school," 29 May 2018
His slowly percolating version of live, moody electronica saw the crowd swell in front of him over the course of his one-hour set.

— annabel ross, Billboard, "Ten Things That Proved Sónar Barcelona Is a Music Festival Unlike Any Other," 21 June 2018
Stormwater flows in, gathering in giant basins and slowly percolating into the dirt and, eventually, the aquifer.

— matt simon, WIRED, "LA Is Doing Water Better Than Your City. Yes, That LA," 12 June 2018
And some folks come up with their own quotable phrases, ones that percolate from their intuition.

— philip chard, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Quotations that speak to us can be signposts on life's journey," 17 May 2018
The Other was one of many, but that’s the one that sort of percolated for me.

— benjamin hart, Daily Intelligencer, "The Newspaper That Tries to Re-create the Feeling of Walking Around New York," 17 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'percolate.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

Percolate comes from a Latin verb meaning "to put through a sieve". Something that percolates filters through something else, just as small particles pass through a sieve. Water is drawn downward through the soil, and this percolation usually cleans the water. A slow rain is ideal for percolating into the soil, since in a violent rainstorm most of it quickly runs off. For this reason, drip irrigation is the most effective and water-conserving form of irrigation. Percolation isn't always a physical process; awareness of an issue may percolate slowly into the minds of the public, just as Spanish words may gradually percolate into English, often starting in the Southwest.