A programming error where allocated memory is never freed or released back to the system, causing the program to consume increasingly more memory over time.
The term 'leak' comes from plumbing, where water escapes and is wasted. Applied to computing in the 1970s when dynamic memory allocation became common, describing how memory 'drips away' and becomes unusable.
Imagine borrowing books from a library but never returning them - eventually the library runs out of books for other people. Memory leaks are why your phone slows down after running apps for hours and needs a restart!
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