Elk

How to spell elk

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce elk

What does elk mean?

1. nounA large deer; in North America the wapiti, and in Europe the animal also called the moose.

Elk in a sentence

• A male elk can weigh more than a horse.

• The rangers tracked a herd of elk across the valley.

Where does elk come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Elk traces back to the Old English elh or eolh, the native name for a large deer, which goes back to a Proto-Germanic root that also produced the German Elch and survives in related Norse forms. That same ancient root is connected to the Latin alces and Greek alke, both used by classical writers for a large northern deer they had heard about but rarely seen. The word names different animals on different continents: in Europe elk refers to the animal North Americans call the moose, while in North America elk became the common name for the large wapiti deer. The spelling has stayed remarkably short and stable through the centuries, never picking up silent letters or foreign trimmings. Because it is three plain letters with a clean consonant cluster, it is one of the easier animal names to write from memory.

How the word is built

• single root, no affixes (Old English elh / eolh, naming the large deer)