elk

See also: Elk and -elk

English

Eurasian elk, or moose (Alces alces)
North American elk, or wapiti (Cervus canadensis)

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ɛlk/
  • Audio (US)(file)

Etymology 1

From Middle English *elk, from Old English eolc, eolh (“elk”), from Proto-Germanic *elhaz, *algiz (“elk”) (compare Low German Elk, German Elch, Norwegian elg, Swedish älg), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁élḱis, *h₁ólḱis (compare Polish łoś, Russian лось (losʹ), Sanskrit ऋष्य (ṛśya, “antelope”), variant of Proto-Indo-European *h₁elh₁én (compare German Elen, Tocharian A/B yäl/ylem (“gazelle”), Lithuanian élnis (“stag”), Armenian եղնիկ (ełnik, “doe, hind”)).

Noun

elk (plural elk or elks)

  1. (originally) Any large species of deer such as red deer, moose or wapiti.
  2. The subspecies of the moose (Alces alces alces, alternatively named Eurasian elk because the wapiti is also called elk) that occurs only in Europe and Asia (not to be confused with the species called moose {Alces alces} which encompasses all subspecies of the moose).
  3. (Britain) The largest member of the deer family (Alces alces); a moose.
  4. (Canada, US) The common wapiti (Cervus canadensis); the second largest member of the deer family, smaller only than a moose.
Usage notes

Notice that the word elk is used in the same way as the word caribou is used for the subspecies of the reindeer. The only difference here is that it refers only to a single subspecies, while caribou refers to several subspecies of the reindeer.

Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations

Etymology 2

Noun

elk (plural elks)

  1. Alternative form of elke (the swan Cygnus ferus)

Anagrams

Afrikaans

Etymology

From Dutch elk.

Pronoun

elk

  1. (rather rare, literary) everyone; everybody

Synonyms

Determiner

elk

  1. (in expressions only) Alternative form of elke (“every”)
    in elk geval — “in every (i.e. any) case”

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch elc. Compare English each, West Frisian elk, from Proto-Germanic *aiwô (“ever, always”) + *ga- + Proto-Germanic *hwilīkaz.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ɛlk/
  • Audio(file)
  • Hyphenation: elk
  • Rhymes: -ɛlk

Determiner

elk

  1. each; every

Usage notes

  • The Dutch determiners elk and ieder are perfectly interchangeable. They do not exhibit the slight distinction that is usually made between English each and every.[1]

Inflection

Inflection of elk
uninflected elk
inflected elke
comparative —
positive
predicative/adverbial elk
indefinite m./f. sing. elke
n. sing. elk
plural elke
definite elke
partitive —

Synonyms

Pronoun

elk

  1. (chiefly in expressions) everyone; everybody
    Melk is goed voor elk.
    Milk is good for everyone.
    Elk op zijn beurt.
    One at a time. (Literally: Everybody at their turn.)

References

Anagrams

Low German

Etymology

Compare Dutch elk, English each.

Pronoun

elk

  1. (singular) each, every
  2. (plural) some, many

Declension

See also

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