lurk

present singular third person lurks · participle present lurking · participle past lurked · past lurked

1. To remain concealed in order to ambush.

   Things lurking in the dark / They like to leave a mark / Inside of you

   2024, Jackie Evancho, “Behind My Eyes”, in Solla

   1 more example

   Even without hovering drones, a lurking assassin, a thumping score and a denouement, the real-life story of Edward Snowden, a rogue spy on the run, could be straight out of the cinema. But, as with Hollywood, the subplots and exotic locations may distract from the real message: America’s discomfort and its foes’ glee.

   2013 June 29, “Travels and travails”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 55

2. To remain unobserved.

   But in time pressure ... Sammy played 40 QxPch????, thinking it was mate- he completely forgot about that Black Bishop lurking innocently at the other end of the board.

   1973 November, Burt Hochburg, “Mecking Making It and other stories”, in Chess Life & Review

   1 more example

   Thus my plight was evil indeed, for I had nothing now to burn to give me light, and knew that 'twas no use setting to grout till I could see to go about it. Moreover, the darkness was of that black kind that is never found beneath the open sky, no, not even on the darkest night, but lurks in close and covered places and strains the eyes in trying to see into it.

   [1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC

3. To hang out or wait around a location, preferably without drawing attention to oneself.

   if we find the sophist lurking, we must round him up by royal command of the argument

   2005, Plato, translated by Lesley Brown, Sophist, page 235c

4. InternetTo read an Internet forum without posting comments or making one's presence apparent.
5. UKslangtransitivegovernmentTo saddle (a person) with an undesirable task or duty.

   As junior dogsbody, he was lurked with this mission.

   2015, Andrew Gordon, The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command

plural lurks

1. The act of lurking.

   There were enemies on the lurk and time was against him.

   1921, George Colby Borley, The Lost Horizon

   2 more examples

   At two p.m. a man had called on him, and had produced one of his advertisements, and had asked him if that was all square—no bobbies on the lurk.

   1873, Charles Reade, chapter XXVIII, in A Simpleton: A Story of the Day […], volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, page 261

   […] barked furiously and made at him as at a wolf, and before he could wholly rise from the lurk because of the sudden consternation, […]

   1955, John Maxwell Edmonds Longus, Daphnis et Chloe

2. AustraliaUKobsoleteslangA swindle.