where the program can request memory - such as shared memory - that is not released, even when the program terminates.where new memory is allocated frequently for one-time tasks, such as when rendering the frames of a computer game or animated video.
This means that a memory leak in a program that only runs for a short time may not be noticed and is rarely serious. In modern operating systems, normal memory used by an application is released when the application terminates. Memory leaks may not be serious or even detectable by normal means.
Eventually, in the worst case, too much of the available memory may become allocated and all or part of the system or device stops working correctly, the application fails, or the system slows down vastly due to thrashing.