Slink
adj, noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A furtive sneaking motion. countable
"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. countable, uncountable
- 3 The meat of such a prematurely born animal. countable, uncountable
"It is an ascertained fact that young or “slink” veal very frequently gives rise to diarrhœa, more especially when that disease is epidemic."
- 4 A bastard child, one born out of wedlock. countable, obsolete, uncountable
- 5 A thievish fellow; a sneak. Scotland, UK, countable, dialectal, uncountable
- 1 To sneak about furtively. intransitive
"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."
- 2 walk stealthily wordnet
- 3 To give birth to an animal prematurely. ambitransitive
"a cow that slinks her calf"
- 1 Thin; lean Scotland
Example
More examples"He was trying to slink into the house."
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.
Related phrases
More for "slink"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.