shank
Part of speech: noun
verb
adj
Morphological type: simple
Topics: architecture
arts
ball-games
biology
business
crafts
engineering
games
golf
hobbies
lifestyle
manufacturing
media
metallurgy
metalworking
natural-sciences
ornithology
physical-sciences
printing
publishing
sewing
soccer
sports
tennis
textiles
Etymology: Inherited from Middle English sceonke, schank, schanke, shanke, schonke, sconke, sschanke, from Old English sċanca, sċeanca, sċeonca (“leg”), from Proto-West Germanic *skankō, from Proto-Germanic *skankô (“shank; thigh”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)keng- (“to hobble, limp; to tilt”).
Cognates
Cognate with West Frisian skonk (“leg”), Dutch schenkel (“shank”), German and Luxembourgish Schenkel (“thigh”), Danish skank (“shank; leg”), Norwegian Nynorsk skank, skonk (“thigh; foot”), Swedish skank, skånk (“leg”); also Cornish kamm (“pace, step”), Irish céim (“pace, step”), Manx keim (“degree, pace, stage, step”), Scottish Gaelic ceum (“pace, step”), Welsh cam (“pace, step”), Greek σκάω (skáo), σκάζω (skázo, “to burst, explode”), Bulgarian and Macedonian шега́ (šegá, “jest, joke; prank”).
Inflected forms:
form: shanks
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: shanks
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: shanking
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: shanked
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: shanked
pos: verb
tags: past
form: shanker
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: shankest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
Senses:
gloss: The part of the leg between the knee and the ankle.
pos: noun
examples: Edward I of England was nicknamed Edward Longshanks.
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide / For his shrunk shank […]
gloss: Meat from that part of an animal.
pos: noun
gloss: A redshank or greenshank, various species of Old World wading birds in the genus Tringa having distinctly colored legs.
pos: noun
tags: colloquial
gloss: A straight, narrow part of an object, such as a key or an anchor; shaft; stem.
pos: noun
examples: The honest, rough piece of iron, so simple in appearance, has more parts than the human body has limbs: the ring, the stock, the crown, the flukes, the palms, the shank. All this, according to the journalist, is “cast” when a ship arriving at an anchorage is brought up.
gloss: The handle of a pair of shears, connecting the ride to the neck.
pos: noun
gloss: The center part of a fishhook between the eye and the hook, the 'hook' being the curved part that bends toward the point.
pos: noun
gloss: A protruding part of an object, by which it is or can be attached.
pos: noun
examples: This twist drill has a reduced shank so that it can be used even in a small chuck.
gloss: The metal part on a curb bit that falls below the mouthpiece, which length controls the severity of the leverage action of the bit, and to which the reins of the bridle are attached.
pos: noun
gloss: A poorly played golf shot in which the ball is struck by the part of the club head that connects to the shaft.
pos: noun
examples: To a good golfer a shank is disgracefuller than being dead drunk or in jail.
gloss: The part of the sole beneath the instep connecting the broader front part with the heel.
pos: noun
gloss: A metal strip strengthening the waists of shoes. (Also shankpiece.)
pos: noun
gloss: An improvised stabbing weapon, originally in prison, possibly from the strips of metal in shoes.
pos: noun
tags: slang
examples: LBC's tryna blackball me / And tryna blame your boy for knife crime (Like, what?) / I don't use a shank, I got money in the bank / Man, I'd rather do a drive-by
One of the shot callers' responsibilities was to control the shanks within the prison population—the crude homemade knives used for stabbing another prisoner.
gloss: A loop forming an eye to a button.
pos: noun
gloss: The space between two channels of the Doric triglyph.
pos: noun
gloss: A large ladle for molten metal, fitted with long bars for handling it.
pos: noun
gloss: The body of a type; between the shoulder and the foot.
pos: noun
tags: dated
gloss: Flat-nosed pliers, used by opticians for nipping off the edges of pieces of glass to make them round.
pos: noun
gloss: The end or remainder, particularly of a period of time.
pos: noun
gloss: The main part or beginning of a period of time.
pos: noun
examples: the shank of the morning
AMANDA: Going now? You're joking! Why, it's only the shank of the evening, Mr. O’Connor!
gloss: To travel on foot.
pos: verb
tags: Ulster
archaic
gloss: To stab, especially with an improvised blade.
pos: verb
tags: slang
gloss: To remove another's trousers, especially in jest; to depants.
pos: verb
tags: slang
gloss: To misstrike the ball with the part of the club head that connects to the shaft.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: To hit or kick the ball in an unintended direction.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Marouane Chamakh then spurned a great chance to kill the game off when he ran onto Andrey Arshavin's lofted through ball but shanked his shot horribly across the face of goal.
gloss: To fall off, as a leaf, flower, or capsule, on account of disease affecting the supporting footstalk; usually followed by off.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: the gerrnens of these swelled, and on four out of the six I have now got fine pods, above 1% inch in length, with the seeds externally visible; whereas the flower stalks of the many other flowers all shanked off.
gloss: To provide (a button) with a shank (loop forming an eye).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The system is suitable for shanking all kind of sewn buttons (jackets, coats, blouses, shirts, trousers).
gloss: To apply the shank to a shoe, during the process of manufacturing it.
pos: verb
examples: I take those metal shanks, slide the backs of them in glue and make them lie down on the shoe-bottoms, […] Last week they ran a contest to see which shankers shanked fastest. I'm not embarrassed to say I beat them all.
gloss: Bad.
pos: adj
tags: slang
Derived words: bit shank
catshank
dogshank
foreshank
greenshank
ham shank
Longshanks
midshank
redshank
shankbone
shank-iron
shankless
shank-nag
shank-painter
shanks' mare
shanks' nag
shanks' pony
shank-weary
sheepshank
spindleshanks
spotshank
toughshank
umbroshank
velvet shank
Translations: