stalk

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: stôk, IPA^(key): /stɔːk/
• (General American) enPR: stôk, IPA^(key): /stɔk/
• (cot–caught merger, Canada) IPA^(key): /stɑk/

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (US) (cot-caught merged)

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• Homophone: stork (non-rhotic accents), Homophone: stock (in accents with the cot-caught merger)
• Rhymes: -ɔːk

From Middle English stalke, stelke, stalk, perhaps from Old English *stealc, *stielc, *stealuc, from Proto-West Germanic *staluk, *stalik, from Proto-Germanic *stalukaz, *stalikaz, diminutive of Proto-Germanic *stalô, *staluz (“support, stem, stalk”), from Proto-Indo-European *stel- (“to place, stand; be stiff; stud, post, trunk, stake, stem, stalk”). Cognate with Old High German *stelh in wazzarstelh (“wagtail”), Danish stilk (“stalk, stem”), Swedish stjälk (“stalk, stem”), Icelandic stilkur (“stalk, stem”).

Related also to Middle English stale (“ladder upright, stalk”), Old English stalu (“wooden upright”), Middle Low German stal, stale (“chair leg”), Old English stela (“stalk”), Dutch steel (“stalk”), German Stiel (“stalk”), Albanian shtalkë (“crossbeam, board used as a door hinge”), Welsh telm (“frond”), Ancient Greek στειλειή (steileiḗ, “beam”), Old Armenian ստեղն (stełn, “trunk, stalk”).

stalk (plural stalks)

1. The stem or main axis of a plant, which supports the seed-carrying parts.

   a stalk of wheat, rye, or oats;  the stalks of maize or hemp

   • 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter I, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, →OCLC:

     Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with […] on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like withered elfin limbs.

2. The petiole, pedicel, or peduncle of a plant.
3. Something resembling the stalk of a plant, such as the stem of a quill.
   • 1681, Nehemiah Grew, Musæum Regalis Societatis. Or A Catalogue & Description of the Natural and Artificial Rarities Belonging to the Royal Society and Preserved at Gresham Colledge. […], London: […] W. Rawlins, for the author, →OCLC:

     they appear to be made up of little Bladders , like those in the Plume or Stalk of a Quill

4. (architecture) An ornament in the Corinthian capital resembling the stalk of a plant, from which the volutes and helices spring.
5. One of the two upright pieces of a ladder.
6. (zoology)
   1. A stem or peduncle, as in certain barnacles and crinoids.
   2. The narrow basal portion of the abdomen of a hymenopterous insect.
   3. The peduncle of the eyes of decapod crustaceans.
7. (metalworking) An iron bar with projections inserted in a core to strengthen it; a core arbor.
8. (mathematics, sheaf theory) Informally, a construction which generalizes that of the notion of the ring of germs of functions near a point to the context of arbitrary sheaves. Formally, given a sheaf ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}}}$ on a space ${\displaystyle X}$, and a point ${\displaystyle x}$ in ${\displaystyle X}$, the direct limit of the sections of ${\displaystyle F}$ on the open neighborhoods of ${\displaystyle x}$ ordered by reverse inclusion. See Stalk (sheaf) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

From Middle English stalken, from Old English *stealcian (as in bestealcian (“to move stealthily”), stealcung (“stalking”)), from Proto-West Germanic *stalukōn, from Proto-Germanic *stalukōną (“to stalk, move stealthily”) (compare Dutch stelkeren, stolkeren (“to tip-toe, tread carefully”), Danish stalke (“to high step, stalk”), Norwegian dialectal stalka (“to trudge”)), from *stalkaz, *stelkaz (compare Old English stealc (“steep”), Old Norse stelkr, stjalkr (“knot (bird), red sandpiper”)), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)telg, *(s)tolg- (compare Middle Irish tolg (“strength”), Lithuanian stalgùs (“stiff, defiant, proud”)).[1]

Alternate etymology connects Proto-Germanic *stalkōną to a frequentative form of *stelaną (“to steal”).

stalk (third-person singular simple present stalks, present participle stalking, simple past and past participle stalked)

1. (transitive) To approach slowly and quietly in order not to be discovered when getting closer.
   • 1822, [Walter Scott], Peveril of the Peak. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC:

     As for shooting a man from behind a wall, it is cruelly like to stalking a deer.

   • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter I, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

     But they had already discovered that he could be bullied, and they had it their own way; and presently Selwyn lay prone upon the nursery floor, impersonating a ladrone while pleasant shivers chased themselves over Drina, whom he was stalking.

2. (transitive) To (try to) follow or contact someone constantly, often resulting in harassment.^Wp

   My ex-girlfriend is stalking me.

3. (intransitive) To walk slowly and cautiously; to walk in a stealthy, noiseless manner.
   • 1681, John Dryden, The Spanish Fryar: Or, the Double Discovery. […], London: […] Richard Tonson and Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, Act IV, page 53:

     [Bertran] stalks close behind her, like a witch's fiend, / Pressing to be employed.

   • 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:

     O ay, stalk on, stalk on, the fowl sits

4. (intransitive) To walk behind something, such as a screen, for the purpose of approaching game; to proceed under cover.
   • 1625, Francis [Bacon], Apophthegmes New and Old. […], London: […] Hanna Barret, and Richard Whittaker, […], →OCLC:

     The king […] crept under the shoulder of his led horse; […] "I must stalk," said he.

   • 1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion:

     One underneath his horse, to get a shoot doth stalk.

stalk (plural stalks)

1. A particular episode of trying to follow or contact someone.
2. The hunting of a wild animal by stealthy approach.
   • 1885, Theodore Roosevelt, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman:

     When the stalk was over (the antelope took alarm and ran off before I was within rifle shot) I came back.

• stalker

Attested 1530 in the sense "to walk haughtily", perhaps from Old English stealc (“steep”), from Proto-Germanic *stelkaz, *stalkaz (“high, lofty, steep, stiff”); see above.

stalk (third-person singular simple present stalks, present participle stalking, simple past and past participle stalked)

1. (intransitive) To walk haughtily.
   • 1697, Virgil, “The Tenth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:

     With manly mien he stalked along the ground.

   • 1704, Joseph Addison, Milton's Stile Imitated, in a Translation of a Story out of the Third Aeneid:

     Then stalking through the deep, / He fords the ocean.

   • 1850, Charles Merivale, History of the Romans Under the Empire:

     I forbear myself from entering the lists in which he has long stalked alone and unchallenged.

stalk (plural stalks)

1. A haughty style of walking.

• Kastl, talks

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stalk

1. inflection of stalken:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. imperative