Lank

Pronunciation

• IPA: /læŋk/
• US IPA: /leɪŋk/
• Rhymes: -æŋk

Origin

Old English hlanc; confer German lenken ("to turn"), Gelenk ("joint"), Old High German hlanca ("hip, side, flank"), and English link (of a chain).

Full definition of lank

Adjective

1. Slender or thin; not well filled out; not plump; shrunken; lean.
• Meager and lank with fasting grown. - Jonathan Swift.
• Who would not choose ... to have rather a lank purse than an empty brain? - Isaac Barrow.
• Blacks in the fields, lank and stooped, their fingers spiderlike among the bolls of cotton. - 1985 Cormac McCarthy, , chapter 1.
2. (of hair) Straight and flat; thin and limp. (often associated with being greasy)
• Lank hair, long, thin hair. - Thomas Babington Macaulay
3. (obsolete) languid; drooping.
• Who, piteous of her woes, reared her lank head. - John Milton

Verb

1. (rare) To become lank; to make lank.

Anagrams

• klan, Klan