hulk
Plural: hulks
Noun
- a very large person; impressive in size or qualities
- a ship that has been wrecked and abandoned
- A large ship used for transportation; (more generally) a large ship that is difficult to manoeuvre.
- A non-functional but floating ship, usually stripped of equipment and rigging, and often put to other uses such as accommodation or storage.
- A large structure with a dominating presence.
- A big (and possibly clumsy) person.
- A big (and possibly clumsy) person.
- An excessively muscled person.
Verb
Verb Forms: hulked, hulking, hulks
- To appear impressively large and often bulky.
- appear very large or occupy a commanding position
- To reduce (a ship) to a non-functional hulk.
- To temporarily house (goods, people, etc.) in such a hulk.
- To move (a large, hulking body).
- To be a hulk, that is, a large, hulking, and often imposing presence.
- Of a (large) person: to act or move slowly and clumsily.
- To remove the entrails of; to disembowel.
Examples
- The opponent’s seven-letter word, ’BEHEMOTH’, seemed to HULK over my smaller plays.
Origin / 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.
Synonyms
Scrabble Score: 11
hulk: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordhulk: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
hulk: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary