monk

plural monks · alternative obsolete moncke

1. A male member of a monastic order who has devoted his life for religious service.

   In clusters on the plain, like cowlless monks at matins, sat the vultures that had settled on the corpse of the hyena impaled by the female rhino […]

   1982, Michael Bishop, No enemy but time

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   This is believed to be the completeſt liſt of this voluminous, proſaick, and driveling monk, that can be formed, without acceſs, at leaſt, to every manuſcript library in the kingdom, which would be very difficult, if not imposſible, to obtain.

   1802, Joseph Ritson, “Poets of the Fifteenth Century”, in Bibliographia Poetica

2. In earlier usage, an eremite or hermit devoted to solitude, as opposed to a cenobite, who lived communally.

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   Tony's face expressed relief, and Nettie sat silent for a moment until the vicar said “It was a generous impulse, but it may have been a momentary one, while in the case of monk and crusader there must have been a sustaining purpose, and possibly a great abnegation, a leaving of lands and possessions.”

   1907 January, Harold Bindloss, chapter 20, in The Dust of Conflict, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: McLeod & Allen, →OCLC

3. slangSomeone who leads an isolated life; a loner, a hermit.
4. slangAn unmarried man who does not have sexual relationships.
5. slangA judge.
6. archaicmediaAn inkblot.
7. A South American monkey (Pithecia monachus); also applied to other species, as Cebus xanthosternos.
8. The bullfinch, common bullfinch, European bullfinch, or Eurasian bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula).
9. The monkfish.
10. historicalA fuse for firing mines.

present singular third person monks · participle present monking · participle past monked · past monked · alternative obsolete moncke

1. To be a monk.

   Good people, if you're ever short of a job, don't take up monking for a living.

   2002, David Pownall, Plays two - Volume 2, →ISBN, page 41

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   "Ah!" she cried, "thou art the prettiest little monk that ever monked it in this blessed, amorous town of Constance!"

   1990, Honoré de Balzac, James Lewis May, Jean de Boschère, Ten droll tales, page 25

2. To act like a monk; especially to be contemplative.

   Many a scholar, making wings of candlewicks to flap away old darkness, monked his life to fasting long while feasting upon new light.

   1961, Snowy Egret - Volumes 25-30, page 74

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   ...drinking: monking on a mountain: plodding in self-inflicted darkness so that the entrance into light would be heightened and supercharged: sacrifice and gain: the meek shall inherit the earth.

   1971, Bill Amidon, Charge ...!, page 196

   Sometimes, in the joint, time gets long. It's best then to just sit and think. I call it "monking," because you can become so inspired, with revelations and understandings. After a monking spell, you may get angry in a strange way.

   2001, Kevin Everod Quashie, R. Joyce Lausch, Keith D. Miller, New Bones: Contemporary Black Writers in America, page 482

   There were half-serious references to his 'going monking'; his new 'religion'; his grey habit; the magnificent house presented to the community in Montreal, etc. (“What price the vow of poverty, etc.”)

   2017, Neil McKenty, In the Stillness Dancing: The Journey of John Main, →ISBN

3. To monkey or meddle; to behave in a manner that is not systematic.

   The Avatar spoke gently as she responded to his jibe. "Now fucking get aboard and stop monking on like a schoolboy, you silly earplug.

   2015, Tooty Nolan, Earplug Adventures: An Exaltation of Earplugs, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   "You just go into the swamp and keep monking around, and maybe in a week er so, somebody'll open up and begin shooting at you, and if you live long enough to git curious about it, that'll be Tom Keefer."

   2008, Vereen Bell, Swamp Water, →ISBN, page 197

   ... because when a man is a corporal its all head work you might say and a man ought to keep their mind on their job evenings as well as day times and I felt like I couldn't do that and be monking with French at the same time...

   2016, Ring Lardner, Treat 'Em Rough - Letters From Jack The Kaiser Killer, →ISBN

4. To be intoxicated or confused.

   I looked up from the thick cotton mat, unsure where my legs were. “She looks monked up.” “maybe her brain is damaged, huh, miss Bryant?”

   2011, Devon W. Carbado, Dwight A. McBride, Donald Weise, Black Like Us: A Century of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual African American Fiction, →ISBN

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   She looked down at herself and said, “Oh, I got that from monking.” “From what?” “Monking. You ain't never done meth, girl?” she said.

   2015, Tonya Craft, Accused: My Fight for Truth, Justice, and the Strength to Forgive, →ISBN

5. transitiveTo attach so that it sticks out.

   All these controls and screens are monked on to a massive network of computers that coordinates the sights.

   1987, The Pioneer - Volumes 111-122, page 11

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   Molten roofing north, lead dripping down south, stand like those immobilized columns of arctic water west, stalagmites, monked and housed or stamped and dudleyed east, in school texts.

   1981, Kalu Uka, A Consummation of Fire: A Novel, page 9

   Those shelters formed chapels where aged forms of the implants monked out in built cells, little churchy cells that perished or grew plain, quivering and hidden from sight under alders.

   2014, Ken Babstock, On Malice, →ISBN, page 63

plural monks

1. colloquialA monkey.

   It seems that the big monk up on the roof is nobody but Bongo, who is a gorilla belonging to the circus, and one of the very few gorillas of any account in this country, or anywhere else, as far as this goes, because good gorillas are very scarce, indeed.

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   ‘We wuz talkin’ and the monk got loose, and she sent me off to catch him.’

   1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 64

plural Monks

1. A surname.