neck
/ˈnɛk/ noun, verb
- noun (anatomy) The part of the body connecting the head and the trunk found in humans and some animals. “Giraffes have long necks.”
- noun The corresponding part in some other anatomical contexts.
- noun The part of a shirt, dress etc., which fits a person's neck.
- noun The tapered part of a bottle toward the opening.
- noun (botany) The slender tubelike extension atop an archegonium, through which the sperm swim to reach the egg.
- noun (music) The extension of any stringed instrument on which a fingerboard is mounted
- noun A long narrow tract of land projecting from the main body, or a narrow tract connecting two larger tracts.
- noun (engineering) A reduction in size near the end of an object, formed by a groove around it. “a neck forming the journal of a shaft”
- verb (transitive, slang) To hang by the neck; strangle; kill, eliminate. “Go neck yourself.”
- verb (intransitive, informal, chiefly US) To intently kiss or cuddle; to canoodle. “Alan and Betty were necking in the back of a car when Betty's dad caught them.”
- verb (transitive, slang) To drink or swallow rapidly.
- verb (intransitive) To decrease in diameter.
- noun (folklore) A shapeshifting water spirit in Germanic mythology and folklore; a nix.
Synonyms
scrag Kirk cervix collum make out French kiss grope pet smoodge snog buss goozer kiss lallygag lips lock lips osculate pash play tonsil hockey smooch neck opening
Etymology
From Middle English nekke, nakke, from Old English hnecca, *hnæcca (“neck, nape”), from Proto-West Germanic *hnakkō, from Proto-Germanic *hnakkô (“nape, neck”), from Proto-Indo-European *knog-, *kneg- (“back of the head, nape, neck”).
Cognate with Scots nek (“neck”), North Frisian neek, neeke, Nak (“neck”), Saterland Frisian Näkke (“neck”), West Frisian nekke (“neck”), Dutch nek (“neck”), German Low German Nack (“neck”), German Nacken (“nape of the neck”), Danish nakke (“neck”), Swedish nacke (“nape of the neck”), Icelandic hnakki (“neck”), Tocharian A kñuk (“neck, nape”). Possibly a mutated variant of *kneug/k (compare Old English hnocc (“hook, penis”), Welsh cnwch (“joint, knob”), Latvian knaūķis (“dwarf”). Doublet of nek. More at nook. Displaced halse (“neck, throat”) and swire (“neck”).
From Danish nøkke, Swedish näck.
Webster’s 1913
- noun The part of an animal which connects the head and the trunk, and which, in man and many other animals, is more slender than the trunk.
- noun Any part of an inanimate object corresponding to or resembling the neck of an animal; as: (a) The long slender part of a vessel, as a retort, or of a fruit, as a gourd.
- verb To reduce the diameter of (an object) near its end, by making a groove around it; --used with down; as, to neck down a shaft. v. t. & i. To kiss and caress amorously. n. necking
Etymology [OE. necke, AS. hnecca; akin to D. nek the nape of the neck, G. nacken, OHG. nacch, hnacch, Icel. hnakki, Sw. nacke, Dan. nakke.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “neck”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details