slink
/slɪŋk/ verb, noun, adjective
Forms slinks slinking slunk slinked slank
- verb (intransitive) To sneak about furtively.
- verb (ambitransitive) To give birth to an animal prematurely. “a cow that slinks her calf”
- noun (countable) A furtive sneaking motion.
- noun The young of an animal when born prematurely, especially a calf.
- noun The meat of such a prematurely born animal.
- noun (obsolete) A bastard child, one born out of wedlock.
- noun (UK, Scotland, dialect) A thievish fellow; a sneak.
- adjective (Scotland) Thin; lean
Synonyms
Etymology
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 sleek.
Webster’s 1913
- verb To creep away meanly; to steal away; to sneak. "To slink away and hide." Tale of Beryn.
- verb To miscarry; --said of female beasts.
- verb To cast prematurely; --said of female beasts; as, a cow that slinks her calf.
- adjective Produced prematurely; as, a slink calf.
Etymology [AS. slincan; probably akin to G. schleichen, E. sleek. See Sleek, a.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “slink”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details