slink

From Middle English slynken, sclynken, from Old English slincan (“to creep; crawl”), from Proto-Germanic *slinkaną (“to creep; crawl”), from Proto-Indo-European *sleng-, *slenk- (“to turn; wind; twist”), from Proto-Indo-European *sel- (“to sneak; crawl”). Cognate with West Frisian slinke, Dutch slinken (“to shrink; shrivel”), Low German slinken, Swedish slinka (“to glide”). Compare also German schleichen (“to slink”). More at slike.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /slɪŋk/
• Rhymes: -ɪŋk

slink (third-person singular simple present slinks, present participle slinking, simple past and past participle slunk or slinked or slank)

1. (intransitive) To sneak about furtively.
   • c. 1607, William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, Act IV, Scene 2,

     As we do turn our backs

     From our companion thrown into his grave,

     So his familiars to his buried fortunes

     Slink all away, leave their false vows with him,

     Like empty purses pick’d; and his poor self,

     A dedicated beggar to the air,

     With his disease of all-shunn’d poverty,

     Walks, like contempt, alone.

   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 9

     Back to the thicket slunk the guilty serpent.

   • Landor

     There were some few who slank obliquely from them as they passed.

   • 1922, Michael Arlen, “3/1/1”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days‎:

     How meek and shrunken did that haughty Tarmac become as it slunk by the wide circle of asphalt of the yellow sort, that was loosely strewn before the great iron gates of Lady Hall as a forerunner of the consideration that awaited the guests of Rupert, Earl of Kare, […] .

2. (transitive, intransitive) To give birth to an animal prematurely.

   a cow that slinks her calf

slink (plural slinks)

1. A furtive sneaking motion.
   • 1998, Mosby, the Kennedy Center Cat (page 30)

     His slink became a stride; he held his tail high; his eyes began to look more curious than scared. But he was still cautious.

2. The young of an animal when born prematurely, especially a calf.
3. (Britain, Scotland, dialectal) A thievish fellow; a sneak.

slink (comparative more slink, superlative most slink)

1. (Scotland) thin; lean

• kilns, links

• IPA^(key): /slɪŋk/

• Audio

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• Rhymes: -ɪŋk

slink

1. first-person singular present indicative of slinken
2. imperative of slinken

• links

slink

1. imperative of slinka.