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PlainSpell

seep

/siːp/verb, noun

seep is spelled S-E-E-P: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 37,459th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, seep means “To ooze or pass slowly through pores or other small openings, and in overly small quantities; said of liquids, etc” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in seep?

Letters4: S-E-E-P
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writingabout once in every 2 million words; the 37,459th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).

How common is seep?

Seep appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 37,459th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce seep?

  • /siːp/

Seep has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-seep.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with seep

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

seep vs sip0 B

Also written: sip.

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Forms of seep

  • seeps present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • seeping participle, present
  • seeped participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does seep mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

verb

  1. 1

    To ooze or pass slowly through pores or other small openings, and in overly small quantities; said of liquids, etc.

    Water has seeped through the roof.

  2. 2

    To enter or penetrate slowly; to spread or diffuse.

    Woe seeped through her heart thinking of what had befallen their ethnic group.

  3. 3

    To diminish or wane away slowly.

    The resistance movement against the invaders had slowly seeped away.

  4. 4

    (of a crack etc.) To allow a liquid to pass through, to leak.

    The crack is seeping water.

  5. 5

    ScotlandTo soak.

noun

  1. 1

    A small spring, pool, or other spot where liquid from the ground (e.g. water, petroleum or tar) has oozed to the surface; a place of seeping.

  2. 2

    Moisture, liquid, gas, etc. that seeps out; a seepage.

  3. 3

    The seeping away of a liquid, etc.

  4. 4

    A seafloor vent.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Seep in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchsuinter, s'exfiltrer (to ooze through pores)
Germandurchsickern (to ooze through pores)
Portugueseescoar (to ooze through pores), jazida (a place where water seeps out of the ground), infiltração (a seepage)
Spanishrezumar, trazumar (to ooze through pores), fuente, emanación (a place where water seeps out of the ground), filtración (a seepage)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does seep come from?

Variant of sipe, from Middle English *sipen, from Old English sipian, from Proto-Germanic *sipōną, derivative of *sīpaną, from Proto-Indo-European *seyb-, *sib- (“to pour out, drip, trickle”). See also Middle Dutch sīpen (“to drip”), German Low German siepern (“to seep”), archaic German seifen (“to trickle blood”); also Latin sēbum (“suet, tallow”), Ancient Greek εἴβω (eíbō, “to drop, drip”)). See soap.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after seep