hulk
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /hʌlk/
rhymes: -ʌlk
Forms: form: hulks
form: hulking
form: hulked
form: hulked
Etymology: From Middle English hulk, hulke, holke (“hut; shed for hogs; type of ship; husk, pod, shell; large, clumsy person; a giant”) (probably reinforced by
From Middle Dutch hulk, huelc, and Middle Low German hulk, holk, hollek (“freighter, cargo ship, barge”)), from Old English hulc (“light ship; heavy, clumsy ship; cabin, hovel, hut”), from Proto-West Germanic *huluk, *hulik, from Proto-Germanic *hulukaz, *hulikaz (“something hollowed or dug out, cavity”), equivalent to hole/hollow + -ock. Cognate with Old High German holcho (“cargo or transport ship, barge”) (whence Middle High German holche, modern German Holk), Old Norse hólkr (“metal tube, ring”), dialectal Norwegian holk, hylke (“wooden barrel”), Middle English holken (“to dig out, gouge”).
Relation to Medieval Latin hulcus (“ship”) is uncertain, as Old English may have borrowed from Latin or vice versa, but the form holcas rather points to borrowing from Ancient Greek ὁλκάς (holkás, “ship being towed; cargo ship, ship used for trading, holcad”) (compare
Ancient Greek ἕλκω (hélkō, “to drag”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *selk- (“to draw, pull”)). See more at the Old English entry hulc.
The verb is derived from the noun.
Senses: examples: text: In Fremantle very few vessels appear to have been reduced to hulks, and only one figure head Samuel Plimsoll, [Fig. 62] survives from a sailing ship hulked in 1904. [...] The Sarah Burnyeat was hulked in Albany in 1886, [...]
ref: 2003, Gordon de L. Marshall, Ships' Figure Heads in Australia, Tangee Publishing, →ISBN, page 52:
text: No further additions were made to this group, and by 1729 the Rank was extinct (the last to be struck was the Ludlow, which had been hulked in 1719).
ref: 2017, Rif Winfield, Stephen S Roberts, French Warships in the Age of Sail 1626–1786, Seaforth Publsihing, →ISBN, page 203:
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: To reduce (a ship) to a non-functional hulk.
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: To temporarily house (goods, people, etc.) in such a hulk.
examples: text: This hearty, willing man had hulked his 354 pounds about the world, faithfully and deftly running presidential errands in Cuba, Panama, the Philippines, Rome, Russia, and Japan and China.
ref: 1968, Francis Russell, The Shadow of Blooming Grove - Warren G. Harding in His Times, →ISBN:
text: A man with four children crowding like saplings around him whistles to wake up the elephant seal who has hulked his impossible body onto the beach.
ref: 1994, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Science and Other Poems, LSU Press, →ISBN, page 16:
text: Hadrian hulked his mass over the spot where the children had disappeared. 'You are still here, aren't you? I can feel your presence.' He walked forwards and his giant strides came down on the children. They scrambled out the way, [...]
ref: 2017, N.D.Rabin, Hidden Magic: Fear of the Smallest Wizard, AuthorHouse, →ISBN:
glosses: To move (a large, hulking body).
examples: text: After one trip with them, he decided he couldn't stand to have bodyguards hulking around him wherever he went. He felt like an idiot walking along the aisles of the supermarket with eight lumpy men standing around [...]
ref: 1992, Richard Condon, The Venerable Bead, Macmillan, →ISBN, page 163:
text: As the occupants stepped out, he hulked at them menacingly and asked them the traditional question. 'Can Ah help youse?'
ref: 2006, Angus Dunn, Writing in the Sand, Luath Press Ltd, →ISBN:
text: An oven hulked in the middle of the room, detached from everything, and a gathering of objects sat in the corner: a rolled rug with gnarled tassels, a chair from the bar downstairs that was missing a leg, a box [...]
ref: 2007, Cheryl Strayed, Torch, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, page 156:
text: The remains of an old bar hulked in the center of the room. As it was draped with more dusty protective cloth, she assumed Hopkins had intended to restore it to whatever its former glory might have been.
ref: 2008, J. D. Robb, Three in Death, Penguin, →ISBN:
text: The whoosh pushed John down, and as he fell, he turned to see the machine hulking over him, just meters away. “Shit!” he cried [...]
ref: 2012, Paul Melko, The Broken Universe, Tor Books, →ISBN, page 314:
glosses: To be a hulk, that is, a large, hulking, and often imposing presence.
examples: text: After a while he hulked up to where Erland sat, putting his hairy fist on the table and watching the boy work.
ref: 1934, Gösta Larsson, Our Daily Bread: A Novel:
text: Instead he hulked his way towards Kruger again as the crowd ooohd and aaahd at the prowess. The two men were about equal in height, but Matusak outweighed Kruger by about fifty pounds.
ref: 2008, Craig Conte, Millennial Reign, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 301:
glosses: Of a (large) person: to act or move slowly and clumsily.
Derived terms: word: hulking
word: hulkingly
word: hulk off
word: hulk out