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lurk

verb
/lɜːk/UK/lɝk/US

Etymology

From Middle English lurken, from Old Norse *lúrka, possibly from Proto-Germanic *lūrukōną (“to be lying in wait, lurk”), equivalent to lour + -k (frequentative suffix). Cognate with Norwegian Nynorsk lurka (“to sneak away, go slowly”), dialectal Swedish lurka (“to dawdle, be slow in one's work”), Saterland Frisian lüürkje (“to look secretly, spy”), West Frisian luorkje (“to lurk”), Middle Low German lûrken (“to deceitfully stalk”).

  1. derived from *lūrukōną✻ — “to be lying in wait, lurk”
  2. derived from *lúrka✻
  3. inherited from lurken

Definitions

  1. To remain concealed in order to ambush.

    • Things lurking in the dark / They like to leave a mark / Inside of you

  2. To remain unobserved.

    • But in time pressure ... Sammy played 40 QxPch????, thinking it was mate- he completely forgot about that Black Bishop lurking innocently at the other end of the board.

  3. To hang out or wait around a location, preferably without drawing attention to oneself.

    • if we find the sophist lurking, we must round him up by royal command of the argument
  4. ›+ 4 more definitions

    1. To read an Internet forum without posting comments or making one's presence apparent.

    2. To saddle (a person) with an undesirable task or duty.

      • As junior dogsbody, he was lurked with this mission.

    3. The act of lurking.

      • At two p.m. a man had called on him, and had produced one of his advertisements, and had asked him if that was all square—no bobbies on the lurk.
      • There were enemies on the lurk and time was against him.
      • […] barked furiously and made at him as at a wolf, and before he could wholly rise from the lurk because of the sudden consternation, […]

    4. A swindle.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for lurk. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA