On the potentially embarrassing subject of the economy, the words "trickle down" and "tax and spend" apparently went unsaid.

The woman wiped the tears from her eyes, and without looking up, the words trickled out of her mouth.

But as word trickled across the country, dozens of battered women seeking refuge in the United States felt the first stirrings of hope.

The words trickled into Rincewind's ear, slid up into his brain, and started to bang on the walls.

"I woke up this morning to go to the bathroom and turned on CNN," he said, words faintly trickling from his lips.

When you dull pain and hide it from yourself . . .' My words trickled away.

Before radio and television, word trickled slowly to plantations in the South about more enlightened attitudes in the land to the North.

His words trickled away into incoherence.

Freddy's lips parted, but silent words trickled into space.

In the mid-19th century, when Japan began to make contact with the West, word of bonsai trickled outside the Nippon gates.