Walk

How to spell walk

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce walk

What does walk mean?

1. verbTo move along on foot at an ordinary, unhurried pace.
2. nounA journey made on foot, often for pleasure or exercise.

Walk in a sentence

• verb

  She decided to walk to the office instead of driving.

• noun

  A brisk walk along the river cleared her head.

• verb

  The doctor advised him to walk for thirty minutes each day.

• noun

  The guidebook describes an easy coastal walk of three miles.

Where does walk come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Walk comes from the Old English verb wealcan, which originally meant 'to roll, to toss about, or to turn', a sense quite far from today's gentle stroll. It belongs to a wider Germanic family, with relatives such as Dutch and German words once tied to fulling cloth (treading wool to thicken it), and the connecting idea was repeated movement to and fro. Over the medieval period the English sense narrowed and softened from 'roll or move about' to the specific meaning of travelling on foot at an ordinary pace. The silent-looking 'l' before the 'k' is the small spelling trap here: in speech the 'l' has gone quiet, so the word sounds like 'wawk' yet keeps the older spelling. That same buried 'l' appears in its close cousins talk, chalk, and stalk, which can help anchor the pattern in memory.

How the word is built

• walk (from Old English wealcan: to roll, toss, journey)
• no affix