lurk
Plural: lurks
Verb
Verb Forms: lurked, lurking, lurks
- To remain hidden, waiting to ambush or spring out.
- lie in wait, lie in ambush, behave in a sneaky and secretive manner
- be about
- wait in hiding to attack
- To remain concealed in order to ambush.
- To remain unobserved.
- To hang out or wait around a location, preferably without drawing attention to oneself.
- To read an Internet forum without posting comments or making one's presence apparent.
- To saddle (a person) with an undesirable task or duty.
Noun
- The act of lurking.
- A swindle.
Examples
- A high-scoring bingo word seemed to LURK unnoticed in his rack.
Origin / Etymology
From Middle English lurken, from Old Norse *lúrka, possibly from Proto-Germanic *lūrukōną (“to be lying in wait, lurk”), equivalent to lour + -k (frequentative suffix).
Cognate with Norwegian Nynorsk lurka (“to sneak away, go slowly”), dialectal Swedish lurka (“to dawdle, be slow in one's work”), Saterland Frisian lüürkje (“to look secretly, spy”), West Frisian luorkje (“to lurk”), Middle Low German lûrken (“to deceitfully stalk”).
Synonyms
ambuscade, ambush, bushwhack, footle, hang around, lallygag, lie in wait, linger, loaf, loiter, lollygag, lounge, mess about, mill about, mill around, scupper, skulk, tarry, waylay
Scrabble Score: 8
lurk: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordlurk: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
lurk: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary