lick
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
Etymology: From Middle English likken, from Old English liccian, from Proto-West Germanic *likkōn, from Proto-Germanic *likkōną, from Proto-Indo-European *leyǵʰ- (“to lick”). Sense evolution towards violence unclear; not paralleled in any other Germanic language.
See also Saterland Frisian likje, Dutch likken, German lecken; also Old Irish ligid, Latin lingō (“lick”), ligguriō (“to lap, lick up”), Lithuanian laižyti, Old Church Slavonic лизати (lizati), Ancient Greek λείχω (leíkhō), Old Armenian լիզեմ (lizem), Persian لیسیدن (lisidan), Sanskrit लेढि (léḍhi), रेढि (réḍhi).
Inflected forms:
form: licks
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: licking
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: licked
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: licked
pos: verb
tags: past
form: licks
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To stroke with the tongue.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The cat licked its fur.
gloss: To lap; to take in with the tongue.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: She licked the last of the honey off the spoon before washing it.
Jim closed his eyes and licked his vanilla ice cream cone.
gloss: To beat with repeated blows.
pos: verb
tags: colloquial
dated
examples: "What a curious kind of a fool a girl is! Never been licked in school! Shucks! What's a licking! That's just like a girl -- they're so thin-skinned and chicken-hearted. […]"
gloss: To defeat decisively, particularly in a fight.
pos: verb
tags: colloquial
dated
examples: My dad can lick your dad.
gloss: To overcome.
pos: verb
tags: colloquial
dated
examples: I think I can lick this.
This week, diskery and phono manufacturer spokesmen sounded tempering notes of caution as they discussed the many problems still to be licked in developing truly compatible stereo with fidelity standards equal to those now available in monaural disks.
gloss: To perform cunnilingus.
pos: verb
tags: slang
vulgar
gloss: To do anything partially.
pos: verb
tags: colloquial
gloss: To lap.
pos: verb
examples: Now, in this decadent age the art of fire-making had been altogether forgotten on the earth. The red tongues that went licking up my heap of wood were an altogether new and strange thing to Weena.
gloss: The act of licking; a stroke of the tongue.
pos: noun
examples: The cat gave its fur a lick.
gloss: The amount of some substance obtainable with a single lick.
pos: noun
examples: Give me a lick of ice cream.
gloss: A quick and careless application of anything, as if by a stroke of the tongue.
pos: noun
examples: a lick of paint
to put on colours with a lick of the brush
When ſly Jemmy Twitcher had ſmugg'd up his face / With a lick of court white waſh,
gloss: A place where animals lick minerals from the ground.
pos: noun
examples: The birds gathered at the clay lick.
gloss: A small watercourse or ephemeral stream. It ranks between a rill and a stream.
pos: noun
examples: We used to play in the lick.
gloss: A stroke or blow.
pos: noun
tags: colloquial
examples: Hit that wedge a good lick with the sledgehammer.
I went in big licks, and, although it was a good-sized pile, I chopped it all up before he got back at night.
Who gave you your worst licks and why?
gloss: A small amount; a whit.
pos: noun
tags: colloquial
examples: You don't have a lick of sense.
I didn't do a lick of work today.
Allen Gregory DeLongpre: Why don't I call Jean-Michel at Il Portofino? We'll get a table outside? Ooh, I'm not getting a lick of service. Babe, can I hop on your landline?
gloss: An attempt at something.
pos: noun
tags: informal
examples: Well, my album did well, but "Ruby" was a timely song and that wasn't the time for it to step out. […] Then Waylon Jennings took a lick at it on an album, and my old buddy Roger Miller covered it, too, in his album. And although they're outstanding artists, nothing much happened with the song.
gloss: A short motif.
pos: noun
examples: There are some really good blues licks in this solo.
gloss: A rate of speed. (Always qualified by good, fair, or a similar adjective.)
pos: noun
tags: informal
examples: The bus was travelling at a good lick when it swerved and left the road.
Dandy Marx, a perfect gentleman in the true sense of the word, now drives forth under single harness ; whereas “once upon a time,” he rushed over the ground at a “big lick,” reigning his four beautiful roans, and continually kicking up an extra excitement among the “fashionables.”
gloss: An act of cunnilingus.
pos: noun
tags: slang
examples: You up for a lick tonight?
Derived words: ass-licker
belick
bootlick
finger-lickin' good
interlick
lick clean
lickdish
licked
licker
lickery
lickety split
lick into shape
lick job
lick mat
lick my balls
lick one's chops
lick one's lips
lick one's wounds
lick out
lickpenny
lickport
lickpot
lick someone's ass
lick someone's balls
lick someone's boots
lickspittle
lick the birse
lick the dust
lick the pants off
lick-twat
lick up
licky
nonlicking
outlick
overlick
relick
devious lick
facelick
a lick and a promise
a lick of
big lick
calflick
cat-lick
cow lick
cowlick
deerlick
Elk Lick
French Lick
good lick
lickability
lickable
lick and a promise
lick-box
lick-dish
lick log
lick of paint
lick of the tarbrush
lick-platter
licksome
lick-spigot
lick-spittle
lick spout
lick-trencher
lick-wimble
midlick
mineral lick
salt lick
The Lick
Translations: