• Walk

    Pronunciation

    • UK enPR: wôk, IPA: /wɔːk/
    • US enPR: wôk, IPA: /wÉ”k/
    • cot-caught enPR: wäk, IPA: /wÉ‘k/
    • Rhymes: -ɔːk

    Origin

    From Middle English walken ("to move, roll, turn, revolve, toss"), from Old English wealcan ("to move round, revolve, roll, turn, toss"), ġewealcan ("to go, traverse"); and Middle English walkien ("to roll, stamp, walk, wallow"), from Old English wealcian ("to curl, roll up"); both from Proto-Germanic *walkaną, *walkōną ("to twist, turn, roll about, full"), from Proto-Indo-European *walg-, *walk- ("to twist, turn, move"). Cognate with Scots walk ("to walk"), West Frisian swalkje ("to wander, roam"), Dutch walken ("to full, work hair or felt"), Dutch zwalken ("to wander about"), German walken ("to flex, full, mill, drum"), Danish valke ("to waulk, full"), Latin valgus ("bandy-legged, bow-legged"). More at vagrant.

    Full definition of walk

    Verb

    1. (intransitive) To move on the feet by alternately setting each foot (or pair or group of feet, in the case of animals with four or more feet) forward, with at least one foot on the ground at all times. Compare run.
      To walk briskly for an hour every day is to keep fit.
      • 1893, Walter Besant, The Ivory Gate Chapter Prologue, Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging....His mother lived at Pembridge Square, which is four good measured miles from Lincoln's Inn. He walked the whole way, walking through crowds, and under the noses of dray-horses, carriage-horses, and cart-horses, without taking the least notice of them.
      • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, The Mirror and the Lamp Chapter 15, Edward Churchill still attended to his work in a hopeless mechanical manner like a sleep-walker who walks safely on a well-known round. But his Roman collar galled him, his cossack stifled him, his biretta was as uncomfortable as a merry-andrew's cap and bells.
    2. (intransitive, colloquial, legal) To "walk free", i.e. to win, or avoid, a criminal court case, particularly when actually guilty.
      If you can’t present a better case, that robber is going to walk.
    3. (intransitive, colloquial, euphemistic) Of an object, to be stolen.
      If you leave your wallet lying around, it’s going to walk.
    4. (intransitive, cricket, of a batsman) To walk off the field, as if given out, after the fielding side appeals and before the umpire has ruled; done as a matter of sportsmanship when the batsman believes he is out.
    5. (transitive) To travel (a distance) by walking.
      I walk two miles to school every day.   The museum’s not far from here – you can walk it.
      • 1893, Walter Besant, The Ivory Gate Chapter Prologue, Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging....His mother lived at Pembridge Square, which is four good measured miles from Lincoln's Inn. He walked the whole way, walking through crowds, and under the noses of dray-horses, carriage-horses, and cart-horses, without taking the least notice of them.
    6. (transitive) To take for a walk or accompany on a walk.
      I walk the dog every morning.   Will you walk me home?
    7. (transitive, baseball) To allow a batter to reach base by pitching four balls.
    8. (transitive) To move something by shifting between two positions, as if it were walking.
      I carefully walked the ladder along the wall.
    9. (transitive) To full; to beat cloth to give it the consistency of felt.
    10. (transitive) To traverse by walking (or analogous gradual movement).
      I walked the streets aimlessly.   Debugging this computer program involved walking the heap.
    11. (intransitive, colloquial) To leave, resign.
      If we don't offer him more money he'll walk.
      • Edmund Spenser (c.1552–1599)He will make their cows and garrans to walk.
    12. (transitive) To push (a vehicle) alongside oneself as one walks.
      • 1994, John Forester, Bicycle Transportation: A Handbook for Cycling Transportation Engineers, MIT Press, page 245:The county had a successful defense only because the judge kept telling the jury at every chance that the cyclist should have walked his bicycle like a pedestrian.
    13. To behave; to pursue a course of life; to conduct oneself.
      • Jeremy Taylor (1613–1677)We walk perversely with God, and he will walk crookedly toward us.
    14. To be stirring; to be abroad; to go restlessly about; said of things or persons expected to remain quiet, such as a sleeping person, or the spirit of a dead person.
      • Hugh Latimer (c.1485-1555)I heard a pen walking in the chimney behind the cloth.
    15. (obsolete) To be in motion; to act; to move.
      • Edmund Spenser (c.1552–1599)Her tongue did walk in foul reproach.
      • William Shakespeare (1564-1616)I have heard, but not believed, the spirits of the dead
        May walk again.
      • Ben Jonson (1572-1637)Do you think I'd walk in any plot?

    Conjugation

    Synonyms

    Derived terms

    Terms derived from walk (verb)

    Noun

    walk

    (plural walks)
    1. A trip made by walking.I take a walk every morning
    2. A distance walked.It’s a long walk from my house to the library
    3. (sports) An Olympic Games track event requiring that the heel of the leading foot touch the ground before the toe of the trailing foot leaves the ground.
    4. A manner of walking; a person's style of walking.The Ministry of Silly Walks is underfunded this year
    5. A path, sidewalk/pavement or other maintained place on which to walk. Compare trail.
    6. (baseball) An award of first base to a batter following four balls being thrown by the pitcher; known in the rules as a "base on balls".The pitcher now has two walks in this inning alone

    Synonyms

    Derived terms

    Terms derived from walk (noun)
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