Etymology

walk

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Today it means: To move on the feet by alternately setting each foot (or pair or group of feet: in the case of some non-human animals with four or more feet) forward, with at least one foot on the ground at all times. Compare run. Full definition →

Middle English walk ← Old English wealcan ← Proto-West Germanic *walkan
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walk · verb1

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*walg-“to twist, turn, move”
  2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*walkaną“to roll, toss, turn, wind; to walk, wander, wend; to full, trample”
  3. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*walkan
  4. Old English · inherited fromwealcian“to curl, roll up, twist; to wrinkle”
  5. Old English · inherited fromwealcan“to move around; to revolve; to roll; to fluctuate; to discuss”
  6. Middle English · inherited fromwalk
  7. English todaywalk

From Middle English walk, walke, walken, walkyn, wolken (“to roll, toss, or turn; to walk; to move; to be living; to beat or full; to perform”), a conflation of Old English wealcan (“to move around; to revolve; to roll; to fluctuate; to discuss”) (ġewealcan (“to go, traverse; to roll”)) and Old English wealcian (“to curl, roll up, twist; to wrinkle”); both from Proto-West Germanic *walkan, from Proto-Germanic *walkaną (“to roll, toss, turn, wind; to walk, wander, wend; to full, trample”), *walkōną (“to roll about; to full”), from Proto-Indo-European *walg- (“to twist, turn, move”). Cognates Cognate with Bavarian woikn (“to full, tan; to knead dough; to roll out dough”), Cimbrian balchan (“to beat, hit, strike”), Dutch zwalken (“to walk around”), German walken (“to full, tan, walk; to knead; to beat up”), Danish valke (“to full, walk, waulk”), Faroese válka (“make dirty; stir up dirt”), Swedish valka (“to full cloth, to waulk”); also Latin valgus (“bent out; bandy, bow-legged”). More at vagrant and whelk. Doublet of waulk.

walk · noun2

  1. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*walką
  2. Old English · inherited from*wealc
  3. Middle English · inherited fromwalc
  4. English todaywalk

From Middle English walc, walk, walke, from Old English *wealc (as in Old English wealcspinl) and ġewealc (“rolling, turning; motion, surging”), from Proto-Germanic *walką. Cognate with Icelandic volk (“difficulty, hardship, trouble”).

Walk · proper noun3

* As a German surname, variant of Walke. * As an English surname, from the noun and verb walk.

Words from the same roots

Old Englishwealcian all →

waulk

Proto-Germanic*walkaną all →

walkinggauche

Proto-Indo-European*walg- all →

vagrant

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.