Etymologically
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walk

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /wɔːk/, US /wɑːk/, /wɔːk/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English walken, also walkien,[2][3] a merger of two Old English verbs, wealcan (“to toss, roll; to wander”) and wealcian (“to roll up, curl, muffle up”),[2][3][4] both from Proto-Germanic *welk-,[2] the source also of Old Norse valka (“to drag about”) and Middle Dutch walken (“to knead, press, full cloth”).[2][3][5] It is perhaps ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wel- (“to turn, revolve”),[2][6] but the SOED calls the Germanic base of unknown origin.[7] The noun is from the verb.[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

“To travel on foot, move about”: probably before 1200[3] or about 1200.[2] Word Origins notes that the Old English verb meant “to roll, toss” and “to wander”, and did not mean “walk” until the 13th century.[8]

Semantic evolution

The abrupt change in meaning may be from a colloquial Old English use that surfaced in writing in Middle English,[3] or from the sense “to be in motion”,[2] or from fulling cloth by treading on it, as the cognates and the Old English word walker “fuller”, about 1050, suggest.[3][2] By about 1300 walk meant “to behave, live in a certain manner”, often in a religious sense, translating Latin ambulāre,[2] and by the early 14th century it was used of a ghost or the dead moving about on earth.[2] Walking for recreation or exercise is from the mid-14th century.[2] The noun, an act of walking, is from the mid-13th century, a path or walkway from the late 14th century,[2] and a manner of walking from the 1650s.[2] “Way of living” is from the 1580s, hence walk of life in 1733.[2] Cock of the walk comes from the walk as the place where a game-cock was kept, from the 1610s.[2] In baseball a walk is a base on balls, from 1905,[9][2] and a sponsored walk for charity is by 1971.[2][9]

Timeline

  • before 1200 – to travel on foot.[3]
  • mid-13th century – noun, an act of walking.[2]
  • c. 1300 – to live in a certain manner.[2]
  • early 14th century – of a ghost.[2]
  • mid-14th century – walking for pleasure.[2]
  • late 14th century – a path.[2]
  • 1610s – a game-cock's walk.[2]
  • 1733 – walk of life.[2]
  • 1905 – a base on balls.[9][2]
  • 1971 – a sponsored walk.[2][9]

Modern meaning

Verb

  1. To move on foot at a pace slower than a run, lifting each foot in turn.
  2. To go on foot for pleasure or exercise.
  3. To pass over or through on foot.
  4. To accompany on foot; to cause an animal to walk.
  5. To conduct oneself or live in a certain way.
  6. (baseball) To give a base on balls to.

Noun

  1. An act of walking; a short journey on foot for pleasure.
  2. A manner of walking; a gait.
  3. A path or promenade for walking.
  4. A way of life or sphere of activity: all walks of life.
  5. (baseball) A base on balls.

Word family

  • walkability
  • walkable
  • walkathon
  • walker
  • walkie-talkie
  • walkover
  • walk-through
  • walkabout
  • walkway
  • waulk

Usage notes

A second verb walk, “to full cloth”, from Middle Dutch walken, is now dialect and historical,[7][4] and survives in the Scots form waulk.[7] The OED also records an obsolete noun walk, “a cloud”, from 1513.[9] In Australian English a walkabout is a journey into the bush made by an Aboriginal person to renew contact with tradition.[8]

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  7. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press