walk

Definition

To move on the feet by alternately setting each foot (or pair or group of feet, in the case of animals with four or more feet) forward, with at least one foot on the ground at all times. Compare run.

Etymology

From Middle English walken (“to move, walk, roll, turn, revolve, toss”), a conflation of Old English wealcan (“to move round, revolve, roll, turn, toss”) (ġewealcan (“to go, traverse”)) and Old English wealcian (“to curl, roll up”); both from Proto-West Germanic *walkan, from Proto-Germanic *walkaną, *walkōną (“to twist, turn, roll about, full”), from Proto-Indo-European *walg- (“to twist, turn, move”). Cognate with Scots walk (“to walk”), Saterland Frisian walkje (“to full; drum; flex; mill”), West Frisian swalkje (“to wander, roam”), Dutch walken (“to full, work hair or felt”), Dutch zwalken (“to wander about”), German walken (“to flex, full, mill, drum”), Danish valke (“to waulk, full”), Latin valgus (“bandy-legged, bow-legged”), Sanskrit वल्गति (válgati, “amble, bound, leap, dance”). More at vagrant and whelk. Doublet of waulk.

Example Sentences

• "To walk briskly for an hour every day is to keep fit."
• "Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging. […] His mother lived at Pembridge Square, which is four good measured miles from Lincoln's Inn. He walked the whole way, walking through crowds, and under the noses of dray-horses, carriage-horses, and cart-horses, without taking the least notice of them."
• "Edward Churchill still attended to his work in a hopeless mechanical manner like a sleep-walker who walks safely on a well-known round. But his Roman collar galled him, his cossack stifled him, his biretta was as uncomfortable as a merry-andrew's cap and bells."

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